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A POLITICAL HISTORY OF 

MODERN EUROPE 



A POLITICAL HISTORY OF 

MODERN EUROPE 

FROM THE REFORMATION TO 
THE PRESENT DAY 

BY 

FERDINAND SCHEVILL, Ph.D. 

M 

PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

NEW EDITION 



WITH SIXTEEN GENEALOGICAL TABLES 
AND TWENTY-TWO MAPS 



I 




NEW YORK 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 






COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
FERDINAND SCHEVILL 



COPYRIGHT, 192 I, BY 
[ARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 






<1 



*i 



PREFACE 

A history which, like the present one, compresses the 
political development of Europe during the last four event- 
ful centuries into a single volume, must needs give the im- 
pression of being hurried and superficial, and be guilty of 
a large number of glaring omissions. In excuse of these 
shortcomings the author begs leave to call attention to his 
purpose merely to raise one of those scaffoldings which 
must precede the erection of an edifice, and which is destined 
to be cleared away when the edifice is completed. In the 
author's view his book is no more than an introduction to 
the field, planned for the convenience of the student who is 
taking his first survey of this branch of knowledge. In the 
hope of facilitating the beginner's labors, the text is accom- 
panied with references and illustrated by means of maps 
and genealogical tables. A word upon the text and the 
auxiliary features will show how they are correlated. 

i. The text presents the political development of Modern 
Europe in the following order: a Preliminary Survey, in- 
troducing the reader to the intellectual, moral, and political 
conditions of the Renaissance, is followed by three parts, 
entitled respectively, Part I., The Reformation (i 500-1 648); 
Part II., The Absolute Monarchy (1648-1789); Part III., 
Revolution and Democracy (1789-1922). Each part is 
divided into a convenient number of chapters. As soon as 
a chapter has been carefully read and fully understood the 
student should turn to the references. 

2. The references at the head of each chapter enable the 
student to penetrate more deeply into the chapter matter. 



vi Preface > 

They are of two kinds, first, secondary authorities, pointing 
a way by which the student may gather additional informa- 
tion, and, second, sources, or rather source readings, facili- 
tating immediate contact with specimens of the original 
material, upon which, and upon which alone, all solid 
historical knowledge must in the end be based. With the 
beginner in mind the author has seen fit to limit his refer- 
ences to books and documents in the English language. 

3. The maps, the close perusal of which cannot be too 
much insisted on, are scattered through the text at the most 
appropriate places, while the Chronological Table of the 
Popes (Appendix B) and the Genealogical Tables of the 
Sovereign Houses (Appendix C), bound together at the end 
of the volume, should prove helpful in solving problems of 
succession and family alliances. 

At the end of the volume will be found a complete list 
of the books recommended under the references together 
with their publishers and prices (Appendix D). In Ap- 
pendix A I have selected from the complete list of books 
a small number costing $25-130 and calculated to constitute 
the nucleus of a serviceable reference library for every 
student with a serious interest in the period. 

A general atlas, always within reach during the prepara- 
tion of the daily lesson, will be found a most useful supple- 
ment to the maps in this volume. Several excellent works 
of this kind may be recommended to the student: 1. Dow, E. 
W., Atlas of European History. Henry Holt. New York. 
2. Putzger, Historischer Schulatlas; with English Introduc- 
tion and German-English Glossary. American agents: 
Lemcke & Buechner. New York. $1.25. Putzger makes 
a specialty of German history. 3. Gardiner, S. R. A 
School Atlas of English History. Longmans, Green. 
London and New York. $1.50. 

A word for advanced students and teachers, desirous of 



Preface vii 

going behind the simple references supplied in this volume. 
Readers of this class should aim primarily at a first-hand 
acquaintance with the sources, even though access to them 
is not always easy and will be found entirely impossible 
without an extensive knowledge of languages. Of course 
the sources of Modern European History cannot be classi- 
fied here. But the following bibliographical works, which 
enumerate and discuss the sources and authorities, may be 
set down for the benefit of the more^ambitious student: 
For General European History. 
Langlois. Manuel de Bibliographic Historique. Librairie 
Hachette. Paris. 190 1-4. 2 vols. 
For English History. 
Gardiner and Mullinger. Introduction to the Study of 
English History. Kegan Paul. London. 
For German History. 

Dahlmann- Waitz . Q uellenkunde der Deutschen Geschichte. 
6. Auflage Bearbeitet von E. Steindorff. Gbttingen. 
1894. 
For French History. 
Monod. Bibliographie de VHistoire de France. Li- 
brairie Hachette. Paris. 1888 (goes only to 1789). 
For the History of the Nineteenth Century excellent, though 
not exhaustive, bibliographies will be found in Seignobos. 
A Political History of Europe Since 18 14. Translation 
edited by S. M. Macvane. Henry Holt. New York. 
Of the greatest importance for the whole period are the 
various collections of treaties, such as the following: 
Dumont. Corps Universel Diplomatique . . . contenant 
un recueil des Traites d' Alliance . . . depuis le Regne de 
VEmpereur Charlemagne jusqu'a present. Amsterdam. 
1726. 8 vols., with Supplements. Garden. Histoire 
Generale des Traites de Paix . . . depuis la paix de 
Westphalie. 



viii Preface 

15 vols. Amyot. Paris. Martens {and others). Recueil 
de Traites . . . depuis 1761 jusqu'a present. 69 vols., 
with Supplements and Indexes. Librairie de Dieterich. 
Gottingen. 

The author desires to take this occasion to thank the many 
friends, and particularly the members of his own depart- 
ment at the University of Chicago, for valuable assistance 
rendered in the preparation of this book. 

Chicago, 1906 



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION 

Tins New Edition is a reprint of the edition of 1906 
with additional material bringing the European political 
movement down to 1922. For former chapter xxvii, On 
the Threshold of a New Century, has been substituted a 
new chapter xxvii, Character of European Civilization at 
the Beginning of the Twentieth Century; while chapter 
xxviii, European Diplomatic Relations from i%yi to 1914 
and the Outbreak of the Great War, and chapter xxix, The 
War and the Peace, carry the reader through the crisis 
of the Great War and the equally grave crisis of the 
Peace. 

Chicago, 1921 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE v-viii 

INTRODUCTION 1-3 

Preliminary Survey 

CHAPTER 

I. European Society During the Renais- 
sance 5-24 

II. The European States at the Begin- 
ning of the Modern Period . . 2 5~43 

III. The Church 44~55 

PART I 

The Reformation 

IV. The Reformation in Germany to the 

Peace of Augsburg (1555) . . 59-84 

V. The Progress of the Reformation in 
Europe and the Counter-Refor- 
mation of the Catholic Church . 85-106 

VI. Spain under Charles I. (1516-56), 
known as Emperor Charles V., and 
Philip II. (1556-98); her World 
Eminence and her Decay . . 107-118 

VII. England under the Tudors; Triumph 
of the Reformation under Eliza- 
beth (1558-1603) ..... 119-156 



: Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VIII. The Revolt of the Netherlands and 
Triumph of the Seven United Prov- 
inces (i 566-1648) 157-177 

IX. The Reformation and the Civil Wars 

in France 178-202 

X. The Thirty Years' War and the 

Peace of Westphalia . . . 203-227 



PART II 

The Absolute Monarchy 

XI. The Stuarts and the Puritan Revo- 
lution 231-273 

XII. The Ascendancy of France under 

Louis XIV. (1643-1715) . . . 274-288 

XIII. The Rise of Russia and the Decline 

of Sweden . 289-301 

XIV. The Rise of Prussia .... 302-322 

XV. England and France in the Eigh- 
teenth Century 323-340 

PART III 

Revolution and Democracy 

XVI. The French Revolution (1789-1815) 343-413 

XVII. The Period of Reaction . . . 414-427 

XVIII. The Bourbon Restoration and the 

Revolution of 1830 .... 428-437 



Contents xi 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. The Government of Louis Philippe 
(1830-48) and the Revolution of 
1848 43 8 -444 

XX. The Revolution of 1848 in Germany, 

Austria, and Italy .... 445-457 

XXI. France under Napoleon III. and the 

Unification of Italy .... 458-467 

XXII. The Unification of Germany . . 468-479 

XXIII. Great Britain in the Nineteenth 

Century 480-490 

XXIV. Russia in the Nineteenth Century; 

the Ottoman Emplre and the 
Balkan Question .... 491-501 

XXV. Central Europe from the Unifica- 

tion of Italy and Germany to 
the Beginning of the Twen- 
tieth Century . . . . 502-515 

XXVI. The Minor States of Europe to 

1906 S16-529 

XXVII. Character of European Civilization 

at the Beginning of the Twenti- 
eth Century 530-547 

XXVIII. European Diplomatic Relations 

from 1871 to 1914 and the Out- 
break of the Great War . . 548-567 

XXIX. The War and the Peace . . . 568-605 

APPENDIX A. A Briee List of Books Spe- 
cially Recommended 607-609 

APPENDIX B. Chronological Table of the 
Popes from the Renaissance to the Pre- 
sent Day 610 



xii Contents 

APPENDIX C. Genealogical Tables of the 

Sovereign Houses of Europe . . . 611-627 

TABLE PAGE 

I. Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella 

of Castile 611 

II. The House of Hapsburg . . . 612 
III. Spain, The Spanish Bourbons, and their 

Neapolitan Branch . . . 613 

IV. Portugal 614-615 

V. Austria, The House of Hapsburg . . 616 

VI. Prussia, The House of Hohenzollern . 617 

VII. France, The House of Valois . . . 618 

VIII. The House of Bourbon . . 619 

IX. The House of Bonaparte . . 620 

X. England, The Houses of Tudor, Stuart, 

Hanover ; the House of Saxe-Coburg . 62 1 
XI. The Dutch Netherlands, The House of 

Orange-Nassau . . . . . 622 
XII. Sweden, The House of Vasa and Vasa- 

Holstein; the House of Bernadotte . 623 

XIII. Denmark, The House of Oldenburg; the 

House of Glucksburg 624 

XIV. Russia, The Houses of Romanoff and Ro- 

manoff -Holstein-Gottorp . . . . 625 

XV. Italy, The House of Savoy . . .626 

XVI. Florence, The House of Medici . . 627 

APPENDIX D. General Bibliography . .628-640 

INDEX 641 



MAPS 

i. the voyages of discovery . . Facing page IO 

2. ITALY IN THE RENAISSANCE * " 30 

3. THE UNIFICATION OF FRANCE . . " " 36 

4. THE UNIFICATION OF SPAIN " " 36 

5. GERMANY ON THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION 

Facing page 68 

6. THE SWISS CONFEDERATION . . " " 86 

7. THE NETHERLANDS AT THE TRUCE OF 1609 

Facing page 170 

8. TERRITORIAL GAINS IN THE PEACE OF WEST- 

PHALIA Facing page 224 

9. ENGLAND AND WALES (1643) " " 2 5° 

10. ACQUISITIONS OF LOUIS XIV. AND LOUIS XV. 

Facing page 279 

11. WESTERN EUROPE AFTER THE TREATIES OF UTRECHT 

and rastadt (1713-14) . . Facing page 287 

12. SWEDEN AND RUSSIA ON THE BALTIC " " 294 

13. THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF PRUSSIA " " 314 

14. THE PARTITION OF POLAND ." "314 

15. EUROPE AT THE HEIGHT OF NAPOLEON'S POWER 

(18 1 2) Facing page 404 

16. EUROPE AFTER THE CONGRESS AT VIENNA (1815) 

Facing page 416 

17. THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY . . . Page 464 

saii 



xiv Maps 

18. GROWTH OF PRUSSIA EST THE NINETEENTH CEN- 

TURY Facing page 472 

19. THE BALKAN PENINSULA AFTER THE TREATY OF 

Berlin Facing page 496 

20. THE RACES OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY . " " 5 12 

21. THE PARTITION OF AFRICA. " " 540 

22. THE WORLD POWERS OF I914 " " 556 



INTRODUCTION 



SCOPE AND OBJECT OF THE PRESENT BOOK 

This book aims to present the history of Europe during Preliminary 
the Modern Period. To avoid misunderstanding, I desire 
at the outset to come to an agreement with the reader upon 
the term Modern, and to examine the meaning of the elastic 
word history. 

Everybody is agreed that Modern History refers to the re- 
cent stages in the development of the human race, but opin- 
ions differ widely as to the point where it properly begins. 
A moment's reflection will show that agreement is not essen- 
tial, for let it be once understood that history is a continuous 
and uninterrupted evolution, during which man passes 
slowly from barbarism to civilization, and it will be granted 
that hard-and-fast divisions are out of the question. The 
familiar terms Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern conveniently 
designate broad successive stages in the progress of man- 
kind, but it is absurd to pretend that each period has a pre- 
cise beginning and ending. Modern History, for instance, 
must begin with the modern man; but as he emerged very 
gradually from the mediaeval world, it is impossible to say 
at what exact point his story begins and that of his prede- 
cessor terminates. For this reason I am content to conform 
to the current usage, according to which Modern History 
begins with the Protestant Reformation. Nobody will dis= 
pute that by that time the modern man was in full possession 
of the scene. From the Reformation in the sixteenth cen- 
tury to the early years of the. twentieth century is a period 



Introduction 



of four hundred years, whose story ig to be told in this 
book. 

Far more important and subject to reasonable contention 
is the term history. In former times all scholars who made 
it their business to collect the facts of the past were called 
historians, and the books wherein they recorded them were 
called histories. Thus it came to pass that the most diver- 
sified materials were crowded within the covers of a single 
work, a history, say of France, telling us of the kings and of 
their court, of the government and administration, of the 
economic resources and industrial methods, of religion and 
morals, and of the progress of the arts. And many people, 
accepting the old tradition, believe that all these matters 
should still be included in a book putting forth the pre- 
tension to be a history. On the other hand, there is no 
denying that historical materials have swelled so enor- 
mously in the last fifty years that for a single man to acquaint 
himself with all the various phases of even a limited period 
of the past is difficult, and to compress them into a single vol- 
ume an impossibility. We hear much in these days of the 
principle of specialization, which has been applied, and is 
destined in still larger measure to be applied, to every form 
of manual and intellectual labor. Under the specializing 
influence of our time the province of history has been sub- 
divided into many fields, such as economics, political science, 
sociology, and diplomacy; and the work which used to be 
done by the historian alone, now engages the energy of many 
special groups of investigators. In consequence, the need 
has been felt on the part of many to redefine history in 
accordance with the new conditions. But, unfortunately, no 
general agreement has yet been reached. Pending the set- 
tlement, I am prepared to adopt the view which commands 
the greatest number of adherents, and which affirms that 
history is concerned primarily with politics, and secondarily 



Introduction 



with everything else in the life of a nation affecting politics. 
By politics I understand the development of government in 
the different countries, the work of these governments in 
making laws and administering home affairs, and the rela- 
tions of the governments among themselves in peace and 
war. It is therefore understood that the present volume will 
treat of the politics of the countries of Europe, not, however, 
without duly taking note of those changes in economics, 
morals, religion, art, and literature which are the causes, 
and therefore furnish the explanation, of every new political 
upheaval. 



PRELIMINARY SURVEY 

CHAPTER I 

EUROPEAN SOCIETY DURING THE RENAISSANCE 

References : Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages, 
Chapters XII., XV.; Symonds, A Short History of the 
Renaissance in Italy; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, 
especially the volumes, Age of the Despots, Revival of 
Learning, Fine Arts; Burckhardt, The Civilization of 
the Renaissance (excellent for the many aspects of Ital- 
ian culture); Fiske, Discovery of America; Beazley, 
Prince Henry (of Portugal) ; The Cambridge Modern 
History, Vol. L, The Renaissance, Chapters I., II., 
XV., XVI., XVII. ; Cartwright, Beatrice D'Este,>also 
Isabella D'Este (for court life in Italy). 

Source Readings: Whitcomb, Literary Source Book of 
the Italian Renaissance (extracts from Dante, Petrarch, 
Boccaccio, etc.) ; Robinson and Rolfe, Petrarch (selec- 
tions from his correspondence); Robinson, Readings 
in European History, Vol. I., Chapter XXII. ; Vol. II., 
Chapter XXIII. ; Benvenuto Cellini, Life Written by 
Himself (full of Renaissance atmosphere); Machia- 
velli, The Prince (on Italian state-craft) ; Vasari, Lives 
of the Painters; Castiglione, The Book of the Cour- 
tier (excellent for the manners of the great world) ; Old 
South Leaflets, Nos. 29, 33 (Columbus). 

The Introduction has informed the reader what centuries The Renals* 
I intend to cover and what material I purpose to include in 
this book. We are now prepared to take up the general 



European Society 



features of Europe at the opening of our period. I have al- 
ready said that the beginning of the sixteenth century is a 
convenient and traditional starting-point for the Modern 
Period, and I added that this opinion prevailed because by 
the year 1500 man, in spite of the mediaeval characteristics 
which still clung to him, had essentially assumed a modern 
aspect. The one thousand years before 1500 are generally 
agreed to constitute the Mediaeval Period, but naturally 
during these one thousand years Europe, in accordance with 
the universal law of life, was in perpetual though very grad- 
ual transformation. Let no one dream that the long Med- 
iaeval Period presents to the student a single and unchang- 
ing face. Especially in its last stage new forces appear 
which greatly accelerate the evolution of society. In the 
course of the thirteenth century, and quite distinctly by the 
beginning of the fourteenth century, man began noticeably 
to extend his horizon and give proof of a rapidly increasing 
individual effectiveness. Instead of indolence we meet with 
stir and strife, instead of indifference we encounter curiosity 
and gladness. This section of the Middle Ages, approxi- 
mately covering the two hundred and fifty years from 
1250 a.d. to 1500 A.DT7 is therefore very properly called 
the time of rebirth, or Renaissance. Let us pass in re- 
view the main forces and events which produced this as- 
tonishing change and supplanted the mediaeval with the 
modern man. 



Mediaeval 
society 
is agri- 
cultural 



I. The Revival of Industry, Commerce, and Town Life. 

The early Middle Ages were mainly characterized by the 
decay of Roman civilization, attended by the first timid steps 
of the German barbarians and conquerors toward the found- 
ing of new states. Economically considered, these centuries 
constituted an agricultural period, during which the people 
lived for the most part directly on the soil. The two con- 



During the Renaissance 



siderable classes were the landlords, or baronage, who owned 
the land and the peasants who tilled it. What industry ex- 
isted was calculated to meet the bare needs of living, and was 
chiefly confined to the building of rude peasant huts and 
rough- fashioned though often vast and imposing castles; to 
the making of primitive yokes, carts, and clothing; to the 
forging of clumsy weapons; and to such other simple work 
as could be done by the peasants in their scattered settle- 
ments. Until society had acquired a wider outlook and men 
began to demand something more than just food enough to 
appease their hunger, and skins and homespuns enough to 
clothe their nakedness, there would be no need of cities, the 
first object of which is to furnish comforts by means of manu- 
facture, and to distribute them by means of commerce. 
Cities, immense cities, had existed when the Roman Empire 
was at its height, but they had all fallen into decay, and 
many had perished from the face of the earth. The early 
Middle Ages were substantially a cityless period. But grad- 
ually the raw and vigorous nations which arose upon the 
ruins of the Roman Empire advanced sufficiently out of 
their early barbarism to ask for something more than bare 
necessities. The demand they gradually created for con- The growth 
veniences and luxuries was soon no longer capable of being 
met by the casual labor of unskilled peasants, but required • 
the trained hand of professional craftsmen. Here lies the 
beginning of the mediaeval town or commune. In Italy, as 
the land which had bloomed most splendidly under the Ro- 
man Empire and had received the least injury from the bar- 
barian invasions, the movement made itself felt first. De- 
cay was checked; a distinct revival followed. The impulse, 
communicated as early as the eleventh century, was in full 
swing by the twelfth. Almost at the same time appeared 
the symptoms of an awakening of city life in France, Ger- 
many, and the other countries of Europe. 



8 



European Society 



The cities 
mean wealth, 
intellectual 
stir, and politi- 
cal freedom. 



Italy leads in. 
commerce 
and industry. 



The result of the new economic demands was to draw the 
peasants in increasing numbers into small community settle- 
ments, frequently around some castle or monastery, and oi 
these some of the more favorably situated presently grew tc 
be considerable towns. Their quiet lanes became crowded 
thoroughfares; they resounded with the whirr of loom or 
beat of hammer upon anvil; they widened at intervals into 
market squares, where busy trade chattered and bargained 
around well-stocked booths. These activities not only 
brought wealth, but made men more self-reliant, stirred 
them with new thoughts. We are all aware that intercourse, 
involving human attrition, travel, strange sights, is the best 
available education. This advantage the townsmen enjoyed, 
and were soon raised by it to a higher plane of civilization 
than the governing classes. They grew restive under the 
feudal yoke, demanded that they be given the control of 
their own affairs, and ended by rising in revolution against 
their privileged oppressors. It is of immense importance to 
the history of the world that the new people, that is, the 
burghers, were victorious. They wrested from the feudal 
powers charters of liberties, by which they constituted their 
towns republics — sporadic germs of freedom and progress 
in the dreary deserts of feudalism. Their democracy had 
generally a less liberal character than that of the present 
day, as only the well-to-do were given the right to vote and 
hold office; but it was none the less a very real growth, and 
in any case marks the appearance of that political principle 
of popular government which is one of the most constant 
interests of the modern age. 

In Italy sprang up not only the first but also the most vig- 
orous city republics. Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Milan, and Flor- 
ence acquired a wealth and civilization which made them 
shine out like points of light in their own day, and still invest 
them with an aureole to our admiring eyes. They developed 



During the Renaissance 



the industrial arts, such as the weaving of silk and wool, 
and the forging of armor and weapons; and they exchanged 
these articles upon the marts of the Orient for carpets, sugar, 
fruits, and, above all, spices, used much more freely then 
than now 1 ; or, in the ports of the North Sea, for fish, amber, 
and lumber. The whole Mediterranean Sea, together with 
the Atlantic Ocean as far north as the Baltic, was drawn 
into the field of enterprise of these Italian cities, and was 
furrowed in every direction by their galleys. That the cities 
of the north were not slow to see the advantages of this ac- 
tivity is made evident by the great league of German towns, 
called the Hanse, which monopolized the trade of the north- 
ern coasts and grew powerful enough to depose and set up 
kings. 

Starting with the eleventh century began that great move- The Crusades 
ment known as the Crusades. The Crusades were, on the orientto 
surface, an unsuccessful two hundred years' war of the Euro P e - 
Christian west against the Mohammedan east for the re- 
covery of the Holy Places of Palestine; but, deeply considered, 
they were a commercial movement which introduced the 
European nations to the luxurious markets of Asia, and 
powerfully stimulated their curiosity and enterprise. The 
mental and material benefits which resulted from this inter- 
course were largely appropriated by the cities of Italy, partly 
because they were earliest on the ground, and partly be- 
cause they enjoyed a geographical advantage over all com- 
petitors. In fact, the Crusades brought to the hard-headed 
merchants of Venice and Genoa nothing less than the com- 
mercial monopoly of the east. 

Naturally, as the towns and nations lying farther to the The wealth of 
the east stimu- 
lates dis- 

1 In mediaeval times people not only spiced their dishes more liberally covery. 
than we do, but also seasoned their wines and medicines with spices. 
The spices most in demand were pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and 
ginger. Other Oriental products, such as camphor and indigo (for dye- 
:ng cloths), were also highly prized. 



io European Society 

west developed, they began to be filled with the desire of 
breaking through the trade monopoly enjoyed by the Italian 
cities and of sharing in its immense benefits. The problem 
before them was to find a route to the Orient other than the 
Mediterranean Sea, controlled by Genoa and Venice. The 
coming of the Turks, who by the fifteenth century were be- 
ginning to render the Mediterranean traffic uncertain, made 
it still further urgent to find another passage to the spice 
lands. Portugal first began the search, conducting her en- 
terprises on the theory that it was possible to break through, 
or sail around, Africa. Thus began the discoveries, a di- 
rect consequence, as will be seen, of the Crusades, which, 
in their turn, are intimately linked with the whole movement 
of the revival of industry, commerce, and town life. 

i7. The Discoveries. 

The The long chain of voyages which ended by making known 

voyages'. 686 to man all the important seas and lands of our planet, must be 
reckoned among the most conspicuous events of the Renais- 
sance. They constitute the Age of Discovery, a period when 
this plain earth suddenly gave birth to miracles. The 
brilliant story begins with the Portuguese exploration of the 
African coast. The first impulse to this enterprise was given 
by a prince of the royal house, Henry, famous in chronicle as 
Prince Henry the Navigator, although he seems never to have 
sailed beyond the waters of his native land. His service con- 
sisted in rousing in others an enthusiasm for discovery and in 
tirelessly fitting out new expeditions. Prince Henry began 
this work about 1426, and devoted himself to it until his 
death in 1460. By that time the Azores and Cape Verde 
Islands had been discovered and the coast of Africa had been 
traced almost to the equator. Still the shore did not take the 
desired angle to the northeast which would show that the 
continent had been rounded. At last, in i486, Diaz was 



During the Renaissance II 

rewarded with success and sailed a few leagues around the Vasco da 
Cape of Good Hope; and twelve years later (1498) Vasco da i n dh^ 1498. 
Gama crowned a century of heroic effort by sailing across 
the Indian Ocean to Calicut in Hindostan, thus reaching the 
Orient by the long-sought independent route. Europe was 
now furnished with spices from Lisbon more cheaply than 
by the Italian cities, to whom Portuguese enterprise had de- 
livered a mortal blow. Their heyday was over, and their 
decline began. 

The discoveries of the Portuguese stimulated their neigh- The Spanish 
bors, the Spaniards, to make similar efforts. As early as voyages ' 
the second century after Christ the Greek astronomer 
Ptolemy had put forth the hypothesis that the earth was 
round, but as he had little secure information he made the 
mistake of calculating the earth's circumference at much too 
small a figure. The ideas of Ptolemy had been allowed to fall 
into partial oblivion in the Middle Ages, but in the fifteenth 
century, owing to the Portuguese successes, the Ptolemaic 
geography was again taken up, and the theory argued and 
defended by scientific men that the Oriental spice and 
treasure lands, vaguely called India, could be reached by a 
western route. The most fervent exponent of this idea was 
Christopher Columbus (1446-1506), an Italian mariner from Columbus 

rcnch.cs 

Genoa. He laid his plan before the various governments America, 
most likely to be interested, and finally secured the support of 1492# 
Isabella, queen of Castile. He was supplied with three 
small caravels, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina, 
and on August 3, 1492, set sail from Palos, a port of western 
Spain. On October 12th he touched at San Salvador, in the 
Bahamas, and before he returned had discovered Cuba and 
Hayti. Owing to Ptolemy's understatement of the earth's 
circumference, Columbus believed that he had reached the 
east coast of Asia, the region of the fabled India, and the 
name Indians, which he consequently applied to the aborig- 



12 



European Society 



ines, has clung to them ever since. The great discoverer 
drew much immediate honor from his adventure; he was made 
admiral, was invested with the viceroyalty of the new lands, 
and was received into the hereditary nobility of Spain. But 
chagrin and suffering forced their company upon him, and 
on one occasion he was arrested and sent, a prisoner in irons, 
from the world he had discovered to the country which he 
had enriched. On his death, in 1506, near Valladolid, he 
was rapidly forgotten, and by a tragic mishap the world 
which he had, so to speak, called out of the void 1 was not 
named after him, but after a relatively unimportant traveller 
and geographer, the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci. Between 
1492 and 1506 Columbus made four voyages across the At- 
lantic, but the later ones did not add very materially to the 
information supplied by the first, and the great pathfinder 
died, as he had lived, under the erroneous impression that 
he had reached Asia and the Indian spice lands. 

In consequence of these successes discovery became a 
passion, especially among the Portuguese and Spaniards. 
Though the seas were wide and perilous, every adventurer's 
soul felt a personal summons to strike out into the unknown- 
regions, whence fame and riches beckoned. No period of 
history is more astir with action and enterprise, more illu- 
mined with the light of romance. Voyage followed upon 
voyage, each contributing its mite to the completion of the 
world's geography. In 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian citi- 
zen in the employ of Henry VII. of England, first reached 
the coast of North America, and in 1499 Pinzon, who had 
accompanied Columbus on his first voyage, skirted the shore 
of Brazil. The climax of this period of enterprise was reached 
when Magellan, a Portuguese in the Spanish service, at- 



1 It may be noticed in passing that the Northmen, coming from Iceland, 
had discovered America in the tenth centurv and called it Vinland. But 
as their discovery was not followed up, it had no results for civilization, and 
does not detract in the least from the well-earned fame of Columbus- 



During the Renaissance 13 

tempted in 1519 to find a passage to Asia around the southern Magellan sails 
point of America. Having successfully rounded Cape Horn, world, 
he was the first to furrow the Pacific, and in 1522, after a 
journey of three years, his ship, Victoria, reached its Euro- 
pean starting-point. Magellan himself did not live to see 
the end, for he was killed upon the Philippine Islands, but 
the honor, nevertheless, of the first circumnavigation of the 
globe belongs to him. 

As the discoveries had their beginning in man's com- 
mercial instincts, the opening of new markets, of new fields 
of enterprise, was the most immediate benefit which they 
conferred. But other results followed. Full of a new Colonization, 
energy, the European nations presently resolved to Chris- 
tianize these new regions and settle them with colonists, in 
other words, to convert them into a new and larger Europe. 
This movement was likely to prove entirely successful only 
in the savage and sparsely settled continents of North and 
South America. In the more advanced and thickly inhab- 
ited regions of Asia the natives would find resources in them- 
selves, enabling them to resist European assimilation. In 
consequence, we note a difference: Asia remained, as at first, 
merely a field of commercial exploitation; the Americas, how- 
ever, were actually overrun and Europeanized. 

Tn~fhis movement, Portugal and Spain, as first upon the Spain and 
ground, had an advantage over other nations. For a to°monopo r iLe 
moment they even dreamed of excluding all third parties discoveries 
and sharing the immense booty between themselves. In 
the year 1493 the Pope, on being appealed to as arbiter, 
gave his sanction to the division of the New World between 
the two peninsular powers. After much haggling they 
agreed upon the meridian which lay three hundred and sev- 
enty leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands as a boundary 
line. All new discoveries to the east of this meridian were 
to belong to Portugal, all to the west to Spain. But this ar- 



H 



European Society 



The Portu- 
guese and 
Spanish 
colonies. 



The colonial 
activity of 
England. 



rangement could not be permanently maintained. Each 
power was likely to hold only what it could actually lay 
hands on, and both together would find it impossible to shut 
out determined rivals. Sooner or later England, France, 
and, very likely, other countries would join in the scramble 
for the new possessions, and such were their moral and ma- 
terial resources that they were sure to effect a lodgment. 

The fierce colonial rivalry among the European powers is 
one of the most important interests of the Modern Period, 
and will play no small part in this history. For the present, 
however, we shall merely associate the various European 
powers with the main regions which they selected for colonial 
enterprise. The Portuguese planted trading posts along 
the coast of Africa and the southern shore of Asia, and by 
means of them long dominated the trade of the Indian 
Ocean. They also settled Brazil, which lay to the east of 
the meridian agreed upon with Spain, with sufficient num- 
bers of their own people to make it Portuguese in speech and 
manners. The Spaniards located their chief colonial cen- 
tres at the following points: (i) The West Indies, whither 
Columbus himself had first directed the stream of immigra- 
tion; (2) Mexico, which was won for the Spaniards by the 
intrepid conqueror Cortez; (3) Peru, which was acquired by 
Pizarro; (4) The Philippine Islands, secured by Magellan. 
With the West Indies, Mexico, and Peru as bases of action, 
Spain surrounded and soon occupied the whole region of 
Central and South America except Brazil, while by means 
of the Philippine Islands she acquired an important foothold 
in Asiatic waters. 

The northern European countries entered late, and with 
only gradually increasing vigor, into the contest for the 
possession of the new continents. The little which Henry 
VII. of England did to secure a share for his nation in the 
great extension of the world is of importance only by reason 



During the Renaissance 15 

of consequences which he did not foresee. In 1497 he sent 
out John Cabot, who actually touched the shore of North 
America. After Cabot, English enterprise rested for a 
while, and when it revived was directed toward the dis- 
covery of still another passage, a passage by the waters of the 
northwest, to the spice lands of Asia, in order by this means 
to elude both the Portuguese and Spaniards, who had 
pushed thither by following respectively southeasterly and 
southwesterly courses. This attempt was destined to fail- 
ure on account of the far projection of North America into 
the Arctic Sea, but it had the effect of at least keeping alive 
the English interest in the North American coast. Not 
until the seventeenth century, however, did England realize 
her opportunities, when she actively undertook the coloniza- 
tion of the Atlantic seaboard. 

The French were even more lax than the English in the The colonial 
matter of colonization, and it was not until the reign of France. ° 
Henry IV. (1 589-1610) that they seriously -undertook to 
carve out a conquest for themselves. They then hastened 
to undo, as far as possible, the consequences of their neglect 
by settlements in Canada, and later in Louisiana — that is, 
in the St. Lawrence and Mississippi basins. 

Germany, a divided country with a decrepit central gov- 
ernment, was in no position to assert herself and claim a 
share in the new lands. She, as well as nations similarly 
paralyzed, like Italy and Poland, came off with empty 
hands. 

III. The Revival of Learning and the Bloom of the 
Fine Arts. 

Hand in hand with the immense extension of the ma- The revival 
terial world, effected by the revival of town life and the of the classics - 
voyages of discovery, went an enlargement of the intel- 
lectual and aesthetic life of man, brought about by the re- 



1 6 European Society 

vival of learning and the stimulation of the arts. This 
movement, like the commercial development we have just 
followed, had its origin in Italy, for Italy was in all respects 
in the van of civilization. The pioneer, at least as far as 
learning is concerned, was the Florentine Petrarch. Pe- 
trarch, who lived in the fourteenth century (1304-74), 
was not only a great Italian poet, author of the immortal 
sonnets addressed to Laura, but also a fervent admirer of 
the literatures of Rome and Greece, which in the course of 
the Middle Ages had been largely permitted to fall into 
oblivion. His chief aim in life was to give them currency once 
more, and before he died he had communicated his passion 
to many others. What writings had been saved from the 
wreck of Roman civilization were to be found chiefly in the 
monasteries, where the monks, who had occupied their 
leisure with copying them, had established the only libraries 
which the Middle Ages knew. Among the dusty shelves 
and garrets of ancient monastic foundations Petrarch and 
his followers began a search as feverish and every bit as 
fruitful for humanity as the explorations of the Portuguese 
along the African coast. And the search was crowned with 
success. The manuscript copies of Virgil, Ovid, Plautus, 
and Cicero were multiplied by scribes and read with fresher 
minds, and these authors again began to shed the light of 
their wide culture upon the world. The discovery and com- 
munication of the Hellenic genius, as exemplified by Homer, 
Sophocles, and Plato, followed in due course of time. Be- 
fore the end of the Renaissance practically all that we now 
know of Greek and Latin literature had been made accessible 
to man. And with the revival of ancient literature kept pace 
a passionate interest in ancient art. Roman buildings, Greek 
and Roman statuary, all in a more or less ruined state, were 
to be found scattered over the whole surface of Italy. Their 
enthusiastic study by trained artists completed the work 



During the Renaissance \J 



begun by the students of literature, and put at man's dis- 
posal the whole range of ancient civilization. 

Petrarch and the generation of scholars who received Humanists 
their impulse from him have been designated by the col- men . 
lective term of humanists. The word signifies that they 
stood for the more literary range of studies called the 
humanities, and was intended to convey their antagonism 
to the schoolmen, who championed the_old-fashioned cur- 
riculum pursued in the schools and universities in the 
Middle Ages. This curriculum had stamped upon it a 
theological character, and consisted largely of exercises in 
logic and dialectics, which might give the mind a certain 
"firmness, but did not increase its store of knowledge or 
broaden its outlook. These very important objects, how- 
ever, the studies championed by the humanists, and in- 
volving an acquaintance with the free and splendid civil- 
ization of Rome and Athens, accomplished, and thus 
tremendously stimulated that curiosity about all things in 
heaven and earth which is one of the most characteristic 
qualities of the modern mind. 

The humanistic faith, with its object of enlarging and Humanism 
beautifying life, made its way with great rapidity in the courts cities" and 
of princes, in merchant circles, and among the universities. 
Many universities had been founded in the Middle Ages all 
over Europe for the specific purpose of training lawyers, 
physicians, and theologians. The university of Paris 
(founded about 1207), the university of Bologna (founded 
about 1088), the universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
(thirteenth century) are among the most famous. Into these 
and many others, founded at a later time, the new influence 
breathed fresh life, with the result that while they continued 
to prepare for the learned professions, they encouraged the 
students to shake off the prejudices of their narrow world 
and poured out upon them a more gracious spirit of living. 



universities. 



European 'Socteiy 



To the same end as the new learning contributed in per- 
haps even a higher degree the bloom of the Fine Arts. Sculpt- 
ure, painting, and, especially, architecture had been busily 
cultivated since the revival of town life, and reached in 
the thirteenth century a monumental climax in the Gothic 
cathedral. No society and no period has ever raised itself 
a more impressive memorial. Much of our too ready con- 
tempt for the Middle Ages will subside if we pause to reflect 
that the great Gothic cathedrals are pure mediaeval products, 
developed by mediaeval architects, practically without help 
from any age. Sculpture and painting, too, gave expres- 
sion to mediaeval ideals, but in a halting way and with very 
deficient equipment, until the revival of learning called at- 
tention to the models left by Rome and Greece. Then began 
a passionate study of antique forms and presently of living 
men and women, which gave these arts a firm footing in life 
itself. It was in Italy, in such centres as Pisa and Flor- 
ence, that the arts were first fructified by contact with the 
classic genius, and though the revival soon spread to other 
countries, Italy, which started the movement, retained its 
preeminence for many generations. Almost every city 
among that vivacious people developed a particular school 
or style of architecture, sculpture, and painting. A mar- 
vellous wealth and diversity of production, the joy of every 
modern student, characterizes the period, but cannot be fol- 
lowed here. Suffice it to glance at the single case of Flor- 
ence. She boasted Brunellesco, the architect; Donatello 
and Michael Angelo, the sculptors; and aside from Giotto 
(d. 1336), who still moved among mediaeval forms and con- 
ceptions, Masaccio, Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Leo- 
nardo da Vinci, the painters. And these are only the more 
conspicuous names of the great galaxy which shed its splen- 
dor upon the Arno city. 



During the Renaissance 19 



IV. The Return to Nature and the Progress 0} Science and 
Mechanical Inventions. 

The influences already enumerated — the increasing wealth The birth 
and independence of the burgher class, the wider outlook 
secured by the discoveries, the new ideas derived from 
Greece and Rome — revived the scientific spirit, which means, 
in essence, the desire for exact information about the world 
in which we live. Mediaeval men had not looked about in 
nature with open or very curious eyes, and had been con- 
tent to accept the bookish theories of the universe inculcated 
by theology. But with the quickening of intelligence men 
began to make personal observations and record natural 
facts, and not., only came upon much that was at variance 
with the teaching of the Church, but upon many things that 
were entirely new. The Portuguese and Spanish voyages, 
besides charting hitherto unknown seas and coasts, accumu- 
lated a vast heap of information about peoples, languages, 
plants, and animals. Such studies as geography, ethnol- 
ogy, botany, and astronomy were gradually revolutionized. 
This prolonged and vigorous stimulation of thought finally 
culminated in the epoch-making discovery of the true rela- 
tion of our world to the other heavenly bodies. Although 
the theory of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy of the ro- 
tundity of the earth was never entirely forgotten, mediaeval 
men had generally held that the earth was flat and was 
the centre of the universe. Hardly had Columbus and his 
followers proved that Ptolemy was right, when a Polish 

astronomer, Copernicus (1473-1543), took another forward Copernicus 

. . . • . ■ . .. and the solar 

step by establishing that our earth turned on its axis and system. 

together with the other planets revolved around the sun. 

The new knowledge of nature and the growing acquaint- Inventions, 
ance with her laws greatly stimulated invention. It re- 
quires no explanation that man should at all times welcome 



20 European Society 

the simplification of a recurring task by means of some me- 
chanical manipulation. Even savages are engaged in mak- 
ing inventions, and the Middle Ages were not so torpid as 
not to show this inherent tendency of our race, which was 
naturally stirred into a heightened activity with the advent 
of the Renaissance. Let us enumerate some of these in- 
ventions, noting briefly how they made life less of a burden 
and more of a pleasure, and man himself a more effective 
master of his environment. The compass — probably bor- 
rowed from the Chinese — came into general use among 
mariners, and took much of the terror from the trackless 
seas; a method of musical notation, which has secured the 
systematic development of the art of music, was devised, 
probably in Italy; in the Netherlands a body of artists, and 
notably Jan van Eyck, developed a durable method of paint- 
ing by dissolving the color pigments in oil; and paper made 
from the pulp of rice straw, linen, and the inner bark of trees 
replaced the much more expensive parchment prepared from 
the hides of animals. Particularly important was the in- 
vention of gunpowder and printing, for they proved revolu- 
tionary agencies of the first magnitude. This deserves to 
be set forth more explicitly. 

If the Middle Ages were completely dominated by the 
feudal lords, it was largely because the landholding gentry, 
clad in armor and mounted on horseback, constituted the 
military force. The peasants, fighting on foot, armed some- 
times only with scythes and clubs, were no match for them. 
With the invention of gunpowder — it came into gradual use 
during the fourteenth century — a weapon was put into the 
hands of the infantry which, coupled with improvements in 
drill and discipline, made them more than a match for the 
highborn cavaliers, while the use of artillery destroyed the 
impregnability of the moated castles from behind which theii 
owners had defied society and its laws. And just as gunpow* 



During the Renaissance 21 

der impaired the military prestige of the nobility, so printing 
put an end to the intellectual monopoly of the upper orders 
and, above all, the clergy. The invention of this art is gen- 
erally ascribed to John Gutenberg of the city of Mainz, whose 
first book printed with movable types appeared about 1450. 
So long as learning and literature could be acquired only from 
hand-copied parchments, they were beyond the reach of all 
except the nobles and the rich corporations of the Church. 
Printing with movable types and on paper immensely cheap- 
ened the manufacture of books, and put them within the 
means of the middle classes. Merchants began to acquire 
libraries, reading became more general, knowledge more 
diffused. Thus gunpowder and printing tended to close the 
gap between lords and commoners, and contributed power- 
fully to the gradual democratization of society. 

V. The Development of Individuality. 

In this enumeration of new interests and activities little 
has yet been said as to how they affected the point of view 
from which men looked at themselves and the world. We 
have agreed that the Renaissance created the modern man, 
but something remains to be said as to how he differs from 
his mediaeval ancestor. The mediaeval European lived 
among rude, agricultural conditions, where thought was lit- 
tle stimulated and had consequently fallen into stereotyped 
forms. Society was stamped with the principle of caste. 
Every man was associated with a particular class, and un- 
hesitatingly accepted its conditions; he was a cleric, a noble- 
man, a peasant, a citizen, and within his city the member 
of a guild. His rights and obligations, his manners, and 
even his dress derived from the group to which he belonged. 

Now the Renaissance broke up the group by endowing In the 

Renaissance 

man with an expanding individuality, which made him im- man is eman- 
patient with the trammels imposed by his class. Business the a group. 0m 



22 European Society 

enterprise and travel made him self-reliant; the new learning, 
the new science supplied him with an immense number of 
new facts; he developed the faculty of criticism and applied 
it to the state, to art, to his fellow-man, even to the Church. 
Sustained, enlarged, exalted, he ventured forth from the 
shelter of the group, and proclaimed the right of every man 
to shape his fortune by his individual efforts. The eman- 
cipated man, emancipated from the group and class idea, 
emancipated from a narrow code of conduct, emancipated 
from abstruse, theological learning, is the most splendid 
flower of the Renaissance. 

Self-develop- Individuality, the vigorous consciousness of the joys, the 

ment and the ,, .-, e ,, , ,, 

universal man. sorrows, the power, the resources of self, became the passion 

of the day. In their extravagant reaction against the re- 
straints imposed by superstition, men came to hold that the 
individual was justified in breaking through every barrier 
which stood in the way of his development. Perhaps no 
age has produced so many remarkable men and women. 
But the excess of freedom frequently led to license, espe- 
cially in Italy, and in that country, by the side of the many 
great men, such as Petrarch and Columbus, lived some of 
the supreme villains of history, like Alexander VI, and his 
son, Caesar Borgia. But even the crimes of a Borgia escape 
comparison with vulgar offences by reason of their imposing 
audacity. With perfect logic this belief in tb e unlimited rights 
and powers of the ego led to the concept of the universal man. 
He was the happy individual who by consistent self-devel- 
opment made himself lord of all science and skill — a god. 
We smile at such presumption now. But it is astonishing 
how near the Renaissance came toward achieving its ideal. 
Look at Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo, who prac- 
tised painting, sculpture, architecture, and engineering. To 
make the measure full, Michael Angelo was a poet. Sub- 
sequent generations of men have moderated their ambition, 



During the Renaissance 23 

but it is undeniable that the Renaissance ideal of universal 
culture has greatly influenced the whole modern age. 
Shakespeare and Goethe are later manifestations of it. 

VI. The Political Evolution. 

I have already called attention to the fact that the land, The mediaeval 
and with the land the political authority, was held in the monarchy. 
Middle Ages by the feudal barons. It is true that the states 
of Europe were organized as monarchies, but the monarchs 
were largely under the control of their barons, who met in 
diets or parliaments and discussed peace and war and the 
other business of the realm. The period tells of many kings 
who were violent and arbitrary, but of none who were abso- 
lute in the sense that they were the sole source of authority. 
In short, the mediaeval governments were oligarchies rather 
than absolutisms. 

Now the agents to which we have given our attention — Growing 
the development of industry, the revival of learning, the in- portanceof" 
ventions — threatened and undermined this predominance of the Clties> 
the nobles. The cities in particular profited by the new in- 
fluences, and, tired at last of being choked and hampered by 
their lords, won self-government. We have referred to their 
victory, which must not, however, be understood to have 
terminated the strife. Outside the walls, in the country- 
side, the struggle between the two hostile classes was bound 
to continue as long as the barons commanded the trade 
routes, which were the very arteries of town life. But in 
this pass the cities won an ally, who was none other than 
the king; for the king, too, hated the nobility, whose lust 
of power had kept him in dependence on them. The king 
could see, what was clear as day, that to strengthen the cities 
was to advance his own cause. He therefore not only helped 
them obtain their charters of liberty, but also favored their 
admission to representation in the national councils. As 



absolutism. 



24 European Society 

early as 11 69 we find representatives of the cities sitting in 
the Cortes of Castile; in 1295 the burgesses or commoners 
were definitely admitted to the English Parliament; in the 
fourteenth century they were associated as a third estate 
with the National Assembly of France; and in the fifteenth 
century they became a house of the German Diet. 
Growth of Thus everywhere may be observed the mounting impor- 

tance of the cities. But every forward step they took meant 
a new loss for the nobility and by implication a new gain for 
the burghers' ally, the king. His power grew by leaps and 
bounds, until it became his ambition to free himself from 
every check. We shall see all sixteenth-century kings striv- 
ing toward this goal, and we shall be obliged to acknowledge 
that this movement toward absolutism was, on the whole, 
beneficial to civilization, since only in this way could the 
feudal nobility be crushed, and the sharply separated classes 
of nobles, clergy, burghers, artisans, and peasants be welded 
into a single people. The kings supposed they were building 
only for themselves, but the subsequent development showed 
that they were really working in the interests of the nation. 



CHAPTER II 

THE EUROPEAN STATES AT THE BEGINNING OE THE 
MODERN PERIOD 

The Empire. 

References: Lodge, Close of the Middle Ages, Chapter 
XVII.; Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, Chapter 
XVII.; Henderson, A Short History of Germany, Vol. 
I., Chapters VII., X.; The Cambridge Modern His- 
tory, Vol. I., Chapter IX. 

The Roman Empire, which at the birth of Christ em- Decay of the 
braced the whole civilized world, had lost its hold upon Empire?™ 811 
western Europe after the Teutonic migrations. However, 
on Christmas Day, jtao^AJD., Charlemagne, king of the most 
powerful of the Teutonic tribes, the Franks, took the title 
Roman Emperor, and thus revived the traditions of the Em- 
pire in the west. Since the resuscitated Empire was dedi- 
cated to the advance of religion and closely leagued with the 
Church, it was presently designated as Holy. The struggle 
and decay of the Holy Roman Empire is one of the main 
themes of mediaeval history. It consistently lost ground, 
both as against the Church and the subject-nationalities 
which it embraced, and at the beginning of the Modern Pe- 
riod had been practically reduced to the national state of 
Germany. By the year 1500, therefore, the words Empire 
and Germany have, to all intents and purposes, become in- 
terchangeable terms. 

25 



26 



The European States 



The Consti- 
tution of 
Germany. 



Growing 
weakness of 
the central 
authorities. 



At the opening of the Modern Period Maximilian I. 
(1493-1519) of the House of Hapsburg was the head of 
the Holy Roman Empire. The family of Hapsburg had 
grown so powerful in the fifteenth century that the German 
crown had almost become its hereditary possession. Theo- 
retically, however, the crown was still elective. On the 
death of an emperor a successor could be legally chosen only 
by the seven electors, who were the seven greatest princes of 
the realm. Of these seven electors three were ecclesiastical 
dignitaries and four were lay princes. The seven were: 
the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier (Treves), 
the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of 
Brandenburg, and the count palatine of the Rhine. The 
seven electors, the lesser princes (including the higher ec- 
clesiastical dignitaries, such as bishops and abbots), and 
the free cities, meeting as three separate houses, composed 
the imperial Diet. This Diet was the legislative body of the 
Empire, and its consent was necessary to every important 
act. Emperor and Diet together constituted the imperial 
government, if machinery as rusty as that of the Empire 
had come to be may be given that name. In fact, the 
national government of Germany was little more than a 
glorious memory. Germany had not, like France, England, 
and Spain, advanced in the later Middle Ages toward na- 
tional unity, but had steadily travelled in the opposite di- 
rection toward complete disintegration. The princes, mar- 
graves, counts, prince-bishops, and free cities, constituting 
the so-called "estates" of the mediaeval feudal realm, were 
about three hundred in number. Some, like the seven 
electors, held territory large enough to command respect; 
others controlled at most a few square miles. Selfishly 
zealous to increase their local rights, they had acquired a 
constantly increasing independence of the central power, 
and had reduced the emperor to a puppet. It was plain that 



At the Beginning of the Modern Period 27 



if matters continued as in the past, even the name of uni 
would presently vanish, and' Germany would be broken up 
into three hundred independent states. 

The greatest interest, attaching to Maximilian's reign is The attempted 
connected with the circumstance that under him the last Maximilian, 
serious attempt was made to reinvigorate the imperial 
government. In the latter half of the fifteenth century 
something like a wave of national enthusiasm swept over 
Germany. Voices were raised throughout the land for 
reform, and encouraged by these manifestations Maximilian 
and his Diet approached the task of national reorganization. 
Beginning with 1495 a number of Diets met and discussed 
the measures to be taken. The result was a miserable 
disappointment, for what was done did not strengthen ma- 
terially the central authority, the emperor, but was limited 
to the internal security of the realm. The right of private Abolition of 
warfare, the most insufferable survival of feudal times, was warfare? nVa C 
abolished, and a perpetual peace (ewiger Landfrieden) 
proclaimed. To enforce this peace there was instituted a 
special court of justice, the Imperial Chamber (Reichs- The Imperial 
kammergericht) , to which all conflicts between the estates of am er " 
the realm had to be referred. Later, in order to insure the 
execution of the verdicts of the Imperial Chamber and for 
the greater safety of the realm against external and internal 
foes, the Empire was divided into ten administrative dis- 
tricts. This is the largest measure of reform which the local 
governments in control of the Diet would, out of jealousy 
of the central government, concede. The emperor was left, 
as before, without an income, without an administration, 
and without an army. Lacking these he could not enforce 
the decrees of the Diet or of the Imperial Chamber, and 
was no better than a graven image, draped, for merely 
scenic purposes, in the mantle of royalty. If we hear of 
powerful emperors in the future (Charles V., for instance), 



28 



The European States 



The Hapsburg 
marriages. 



The dominion 
of Charles V. 



we shall discover that they owed their power, not to the 
Empire, but always to the strength which they derived 
from their] hereditary lands. In their hereditary lands they 
were, what they could never be in the Empire, effective 
masters. 

Maximilian, who fell under the spell of the new culture 
influences of the Renaissance, was a strange mixture of mod- 
ern and mediaeval elements. He was much buffeted about 
by fortune, largely because he was simple-hearted enough 
to take the Empire and its threadbare splendors seriously. 
He tried to make good the ancient imperial claims to parts 
of Italy, and met with defeat and derision; he tried to unite 
Europe against the Turks, who had overrun the east and 
were moving westward up the Danube, but he could not 
even influence his own Germans to a national war of de- 
fence. However, a number of lucky matrimonial alliances 
compensated Maximilian for his many political disappoint- 
ments. In the year 1477 he married Mary of Burgundy, 
the only child of Charles the Bold and heiress of the Nether- 
lands; and in 1496 his son Philip was united to Joan of Cas- 
tile, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and heir-apparent 
to the crown of Spain. As Philip died in 1506 and Joan 
shortly after became insane, their son Charles was pro- 
claimed, first, sovereign of the Netherlands, and later, on the 
death of Ferdinand (15 16), king of Spain. Finally, when 
the Emperor Maximilian died (1519), Charles fell heir also 
to the Austrian lands, and soon after was elected to succeed 
his grandfather in the Empire. The new emperor adopted 
the title of Charles V. 1 To recount his astonishing position: 
he was lord of the Netherlands, king of Spain and her de- 
pendencies in Europe and beycnd the seas, archduke of 
Austria — all this in his own right — whereto had been added 



1 As king of Spain he is Charles I. For his descent see Genealogical 
Tables I. and II. 



At the Beginning of the Modern Period 29 

by election the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Un- 
luckily for Charles V. there had, just before Maximilian's 
death, broken out the great Church schism, called the Ref- 
ormation. Little as Charles suspected it at first, the Refor- 
mation was destined to become the most significant event of 
his reign. 

Italy. 

References: Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, especially the 
volume entitled Age of the Despots; Ewart, Cosimo 
de' Medici; Armstrong, Lorenzo de' Medici; Villari, 
Life and Times of Savonarola; Villari, Life and Tunes 
of Machiavelli; Horatio F. Brown, Venice; Cam- 
bridge Modern History, Vol. I., Chapter IV. (inva- 
sions of Italy), V. and VI. (Florence), VII. (Rome), 
VIII. (Venice). 

Italy at the end of the Middle Ages had fallen into worse The five 
confusion than Germany, for the country possessed not even ea ng s a es ° 
that semblance of national unity, still maintained in Germany. 
There were in the peninsula five leading states: the duchy of 
Milan, the republic of Venice, the republic of Florence, the 
states of the Church, and the kingdom of Naples. The 
numerous small states, like Savoy and Ferrara, were too 
inconsiderable to play much of a political role. 

During the fifteenth century the five leading states had Spain and 
been constantly engaged in wars among themselves. These come'interest- 
wars did no great harm until it occurred to the kings of Spain ed in Italy * 
and France to turn the local divisions of Italy to their per- 
sonal advantage. Spain, or rather Aragon, at the end of the 
fifteenth century already possessed the islands of Sardinia 
and Sicily, and its royal house was closely related to the 
ruling family of Naples. Through these connections Spain 
acquired an active interest in Italian affairs. Unfortunately 
for Italy, France also became interested in Italian affairs 
when in 1481 the last member of the House of Anjou died, 



30 



The European States 



Charles VIII. 
of France 
invades 
Italy, 1494. 



Naples ac- 
quired by 
Spain, 1504. 



Struggle be- 
tween France 
and Spain for 
the posses- 
sion of Milan. 



leaving all his possessions and claims to his near relative, 
the king of France. Among the claims was one to the 
kingdom of Naples, handed down from an earlier representa- 
tive of the line. Charles VIII. of France resolved on his 
accession to power to make good this claim upon Naples by 
force, and in 1494 he made his famous invasion of Italy, 
It was the first foreign interference in the affairs of the 
peninsula since the beginning of the Renaissance, and be- 
came the prelude to Italy's decay and enslavement. Spain, 
unwilling to permit the extension of France, looked upon 
Charles's step as a challenge, and inaugurated a struggle 
for the possession of Italy which lasted for over fifty years 
and ended in her complete victory. At the beginning of our 
period this result was not yet apparent. But within a few 
years after the outbreak of the French-Spanish wars the 
states of Italy, overrun and plundered by superior forces, 
commenced to exhibit material alterations in their political 
status. Let us take a closer view of these Italian states. 

Naples. — If Naples, as it was the first, had remained the 
only, source of quarrel between France and Spain, peace 
might soon have been reestablished. For, after having been 
traversed again and again by French and Spanish troops, 
the kingdom of Naples was definitely ceded by France to 
Spain (1504). As the southern part of the Italian mainland 
had for some time been designated in current use as Sicily, 
Ferdinand of Aragon, already lord of the island of Sicily, 
henceforth adopted the style of king of The Two Sicilies. 
Unfortunately, a second bone of contention between the 
two great western monarchies was found in the duchy of 
Milan. 

Milan. — The duchy of Milan was legally a fief of the Holy 
Roman Empire, but was held at this time in practically 
independent possession by the family of a successful military 
adventurer of the name of Sforza. When Charles VIII. of 



At the Beginning of the Modern Period 31 

France died in 1498 Louis XII., his successor, remembered 
that he was a descendant, in the female line, of a family, the 
Visconti, who had ruled in Milan before the Sforza family had 
become established. On the strength of this vague priority 
Louis resolved to supplant the Sforza upstart. Having Louis XII. 
invaded and conquered Milan in 1499, he held that city MUan^oo. 
successfully until there was formed against him the Holy 
League, composed of the Pope, Venice, Spain, and England 
(15 1 2). The Holy League quickly succeeded in driving the 
French out of Italy and in reinstating the Sforza family in 
their duchy. Louis XII. died in 1515 without having re- 
conquered Milan, but his successor, Francis I., immediately 
upon his accession marched his army off to Italy. Charles 
VIII. had taken Naples and lost it again, Louis XII. had 
seized Milan only to be dispossessed, and now Francis I., as 
brimming with ambition as his predecessors, made a third 
assault on the peninsula. A brilliant victory at Marignano Francis I. 
(15 1 5), which delivered Milan into his hands, seemed to jus- qU ers Milan, 
tify his step. For a short time now there was peace between I5IS * 
France and Spain; but naturally the Spaniards saw with 
envy the extension of French influence over the north of 
Italy, and when Charles, king of Spain, was elected emperor 
in 1 5 19 the necessary pretext for renewing the war with 
France was given into their hands. It has already been said 
that Milan was legally a fief of the Empire. In his capacity 
of emperor, Charles could find a ready justification for inter- 
fering in the affairs of his dependency. Immediately upon 
his election he resolved to challenge the right of the French 
to Milan, and so the French-Spanish wars in Italy were 
renewed. 

Venice. — In the fifteenth century Venice was the strongest The splendid 
of all the Italian states. She called herself a republic, but Venice! 10 
was more truly an oligarchy, the power lying in the hands 
of the nobles, who composed the Great Council, controlled 



32 The European States 

the administration, and elected the chief dignitary, the doge 
or duke. The power of Venice was due to her immense 
trade and possessions in the eastern Mediterranean. The 
Crusades had opened her eyes to the resources of this region, 
and she had gradually taken possession of the Morea (Pelo- 
ponnesus), Candia, Cyprus, and most of the islands of the 
^Egean and Ionian seas. In addition to these colonial terri- 
tories she held the whole northeastern portion of Italy. 

The Renaissance is the period of Venetian glory; at the 
beginning of the Modern Period that glory was already 
rapidly waning. The first check to the continued pros- 
perity of Venice was given by the Turks. Having begun 
their irresistible march through western Asia and eastern 
Europe, they wrenched from Venice, bit by bit, her Oriental 
trade and possessions. The second misfortune which befell 
the city of the lagoons was the discovery by Vasco da Gama 
of the sea-passage to India around the Cape of Good Hope. 
This discovery, by drawing off the Oriental commerce to 
the states of the Atlantic seaboard, struck a fatal blow at 
Venetian prosperity. And to these reverses in the east were 
added disasters in the west. Partly owing to her wealth, 
partly owing to her selfish policy .' T v emce Zi aroused the 
jealousy and hatred of hi ' xn Y nei E^°% who finally 
agreed to lower her pride. J^o6 the emperor, the Pope, 

France, and Spain, formed against her the formidable 
League of Cambray. Although she managed by timely 
concessions to save herself from the noose which had been 
flung about her neck, she never again recovered her former 
prestige. She declined gradually during the whole Modern 
Period, but even in her decay remained one of the main 
bulwarks of Eux pe against the encroachments of the Turks. 
Finally, Napoleon made an end of her existence as an in- 
dependent state in the year 1797. 

Florence. — The republic of Florence, far-famed in the 



At the Beginning of the Modem Period 33 

period of the Renaissance for its great artists and writers, 
had in the fifteenth century fallen under the domination of 
a native family, the Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent, the 
greatest of the line, ruled from 1469 to 1492). The Medici Florence sub- 
did not greatly alter the republican forms, but by means of a Medici.° 
clever political "ring" controlled the public offices. Against 
this concealed tyranny the people continued to protest in 
their hearts. When, therefore, the invasion of Charles VIII. 
(1494) offered a chance to cast off the Medicean yoke, the 
people rose, banished their tyrants, and reestablished the re- 
public. Girolamo Savonarola, a pure-minded, resolute, and Savonarola, 
devoted Dominican friar, who had through his stirring invec- 
tives against the general corruption of manners acquired a 
great following, became the popular hero and leader. For 
four years he exercised great influence in the government and 
labored ceaselessly at the reform of the morals of his way- 
ward flock. During the period of Savonarola's supremacy 
Florence presented to her astonished contemporaries, who 
dwelt upon the free heights of the pagan Renaissance, the 
picture of a city dominated by a priestly faction. But in 
1498 Savonarola's enemies compassed his overthrow and 
burned him at the stake. For a few more years the republic 
went on as best it could, until ' - 15 12 the Medici reconquered The return of 
the city. In 1527 the Florences made a second and last at- 
tempt to regain their liberties. Again they cast the Medici 
out, but again the banished princes returned, this time (1529) 
with the help of Charles V., who now honored the head of the 
Medicean House, Alexander, by conferring upon him and 
his heirs Florence and her territory, under the name of the 
duchy (later the grand duchy) of Tuscany. Thus by a pol- 
icy of sly and persistent encroachment the jy.~<?dici became the 
hereditary rulers of their native city. 

The States of the Church. — During the period of the 
Renaissance the Popes, influenced by pagan ideas like the 



34 



The European States 



The states of 
the Church 
once more 
subjugated to 
the Fope. 



The Borgias. 



J ulius II. 
and Leo X. 
make Rome 
the artistic 
centre of 
Italy. 



rest of the world, inclined to sacrifice the principles o! 
Christian faith and morality to the desire of being brilliant 
secular princes. Their dominant aspiration was to recover 
their lost control of the territory of the Church. This ter- 
ritory, running across the middle of the peninsula, formed 
an extensive possession, but had unfortunately fallen in large 
part into the hands of petty tyrants. Pope Alexander VI. 
(1492-1503), of the Spanish family of Borgia, infamous 
for his murders and excesses, may largely take the credit 
to himself of having carried the papal policy to a successful 
issue. Through the unscrupulous agency of his son, Csesar 
Borgia, the petty tyrants of the papal states were got rid of, 
frequently by poison and assassination. The successor of 
Alexander VI., the mighty Julius II., completed Caesar's 
work, and made the Tope absolute master in his dominions . 

Julius II. (1503-13) and his successor, LeoX. (1513-21), 
are excellent examples of the Renaissance type of Pope. 
They showed no trace of mediaeval austerity, or even of re- 
ligious fervor; they looked upon trWr office as an unequalled 
opportunity for exercising authority and commanding the 
pleasures of the earth; and while they were ambitious, sen- 
sual, splendid, they responded also to the refined influences of 
the day. Both of them will always be remembered for their 
enthusiastic patronage of the arts, which made Rome, in their 
time and largely through their efforts, the artistic centre of 
Italy. It was during the Papacy of Leo X. , who was a member 
of the famous Florentine family of the Medici, and whose in- 
terests were literary, artistic, social, in short, everything but 
religious, that there was raised in Germany the cry for reform 
which led to the Protestant schism. Luther wrestling with 
himself in the solitude of his cell and Leo feasting among pi- 
pers and buffoons make one of the notable contrasts of history. 

Savoy. — In northwestern Italy, on the border of France, 
lay, among the snows of the Alps, the duchy of Savoy. At 



At the Beginning of the Modern Period 35 



the beginning of the Modern Period the duke of Savoy was 
not yet an influential potentate, but he sat at the passes of 
the Alps, which he could open and shut, like a doorkeeper, 
at his pleasure or — for a consideration. This advantage of 
position he made shrewd use of, with the result that during 
the next centuries he waxed bigger and bigger, until finally 
his power surpassed that of any other prince of Italy. In 
the nineteenth century his house attained its final success 
in being called to reign over united Italy. 

France. 

References: Kitchin, History of France, Vol. II.; Cam- 
bridge Modern History, Vol. I., Chapter XII. 

In the second half of the fifteenth century, under Charles Theunifica- 
VII. (1422-61) and Louis XI. (1461-83), France lost much 
of her mediaeval and feudal character and assumed the form 
of an absolute monarchy. The great fiefs, through the ex- 
tinction of the local reigning families, had largely come back 
into the hands of the king, and instead of giving them again 
to dukes and counts as hereditary possessions, he kept them 
for himself, ruling them through governors with revocable 
powers. He had also secured a national revenue by means 

of a land-tax called tattle, of which he had free disposal; The tattle 

.... , . ,. i • 1 1 • and the stand 

and he had created a standing army which was in his pay i ng army. 

and rendered him independent of the ancient levy of the 

nobles. The reign of Louis XL was rendered particularly 

noteworthy by the resumption of the great fiefs of Provence 

and Burgundy on the death of the last male heirs of these 

province's. Under Louis's son, Charles VEIL (1483-98), 

fortune continued to smile upon the royal house, for by his 

marriage with the heiress of Brittany Charles secured the 

great fief in the northwest for his family, and practically 

completed the unification of France- 



36 



The European States 



The Estates 
General and 
Parliaments 
as checks upon 
the king. 



These successes raised the king to such an eminence that 
it became probable that all checks upon his will would 
presently fail. Two such checks, however, still existed, and 
upon them would depend whether the monarch, fast verging 
upon absolutism, could be made to travel a constitutional 
path. These two institutions were: (i) the Estates General 
or session of the three classes, clergy, nobility, and commons, 
whom the king consulted in periods of distress but was not 
bound to obey, and (2) the Parliaments, which came finally 
to be thirteen in number, and among which the Parlia- 
ment of Paris was by far the most important. These Par- 
liaments (parlements) were not legislative bodies, as the cur- 
rent English use of the word implies, but supreme courts 
of justice. In tracing the history of the royal power we 
must give close attention henceforth to the Estates General 
and the Parliaments. 

Flattered by the proud position won by himself and his 
ancestors, Charles VIII. permitted his thoughts to range to 
foreign conquest. He undertook to conquer Naples on the 
strength of certain inherited claims, and in 1494 invaded 
Italy. But his policy of foreign conquest incited the hos- 
tility of his jealous neighbor Spain, and led to the great 
French-Spanish wars for the possession of Italy, which lasted, 
with occasional interruptions, for fifty years. The review of 
Italy has acquainted us with the early stages of this conflict. 
Charles VIII. after a brief triumph was forced to give up 
Naples. Finally it was ceded to Ferdinand of Spain (1504). 
Louis XII. of France (1498-15 15) renewed the struggle in 
Italy by laying hold of the duchy of Milan, and though he 
was forced to give up Milan in 15 12 (the Holy League), his 
successor, Francis L, immediately reconquered it by the vic- 
tory of Marignano (1515). Thus between 1494 and 1515 
France made three assaults upon the Apennine peninsula. 
Twice she had made a lodgment only to be evicted, and we 



At the Beginning of the Modern Period 37 

shall presently see that her third conquest was no more du- 
rable than the other two. 

Spain. 

References: Hume, The Spanish People, Chapters VIII., 
IX.; Hume, Spain, 1479-1788, Introduction; Burke, 
History of Spain, Vol. II., Chapters XXXVII.-XLII. ; 
Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain. 

The movement toward national unity and absolutism, Theunifica- 
just observed in France, is no less characteristic of the politi- 10n ° pam * 
cal development of Spain during the fifteenth century. The 
Spanish peninsula had suffered a sad eclipse in the early 
Middle Ages by being overrun by the Mohammedan Moors, 
who crossed the straits from Africa. Gradually the tide of 
conquest receded, and upon the liberated territory the Span- 
iards constructed a number of Christian states, which in the 
face of a common enemy inevitably tended to act in concert. 
A process of fusion began, which, though often interrupted, 
culminated in the fifteenth century in the marriage of Fer- 
dinand of Aragon (147 9- 151 6) with Isabella of Castile 
(1474-1504). The kingdoms of Aragon and Castile both 
owed their greatness to their effective championship of the 
national cause against the Moors, and their union brought 
the greater part of the peninsula into the hands of a single 
family. Ferdinand and Isabella immediately turned their 
united strength against the hereditary foe, and in the year The conquest 
1492 Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors, was cap- ° 4 * 2 e oors ' 
tured. The Mohammedan power in Spain, which had 
lasted for eight centuries, had come to an end. 

The unification of Spain inaugurated a period of territorial The expansion 
expansion which can hardly be paralleled in history. In ° pain " 
the same year in which the Moorish kingdom fell, Columbus 
discovered America and opened to Spain the vast dominion America. 



38 



The European States 



The growth 
of absolutism. 



Naples. of the New World. Next, Ferdinand, drawn into war with 

France on account of the conquest of Naples by Charles 
VIII., beat the French, and seized the kingdom of Naples 
for himself (1504). In 15 12 he further acquired that part 

Navarre. of the border kingdom of Navarre which lay upon the 

Spanish slope of the Pyrenees. Thus it happened that when 
Ferdinand was succeeded, upon his death, by his grandson 
Charles I. (1516-56), this young king found himself master 

Charles I. of the most extensive territories of the world. Although 

Charles was, merely by virtue of his position as king of 
Spain, the leading sovereign of Europe, he had additional 
interests and resources as ruler of the Netherlands and arch- 
duke of Austria, which raised him far above any rival. 
Finally, in 15 19, the electors of the Empire made him 
emperor under the name of Charles V. 

The growth of the royal power had meanwhile kept pace 
with the territorial extension of Spain. With the aid of the 
cities, which were, as already explained, the natural allies 
of the monarch, Ferdinand and Isabella put down the 
robber-knights, the pest of every feudal country. They 
thus made the highways safe for the caravans of trade and 
gave peace to the land. Like all mediaeval sovereigns, the 
monarchs of Aragon and Castile were more or less subject 
to their barons, who, when they met in formal session, 
called themselves the Cortes. As early as the twelfth 
century the representatives of the cities were admitted to 

TLe Cortes, the Cortes, whereupon the proud nobles of Castile, largely, 
it would seem, from disgust at this enforced association 
with commoners, began to withdraw from the parliamen- 
tary body. It was a stupid action, practically shattering 
the political power of the nobility. But the loss of the 
nobles was the gain of the sovereign, and when he now be- 
gan to ride rough-shod over the commoners, the Cortes 
entered upon a slow decline. In Castile they dropped off 



ix" 



At the Beginning of the Modem Period 39 



first, while in Aragon they showed some vigor as late as the 
reign of Philip II. (d. 1598). 

But the event which, more than the decline of the Cortes, 
contributed to the extension of the central power was the 
introduction of that institution, so intimately associated with 
Dur conception of Spain, the Inquisition. The fundamental The Inquisi- 
idea of the Inquisition is a committee of inquiry to ferret out 
and punish religious heresy. Such inquisitorial bodies were 
frequently organized both by Church and state during the 
Middle Ages. Spain did not originate the idea, she only 
took it up and gave it a new and effective expression. The 
country had a large population of Mohammedans and Jews, 
and in a period when every nation was animated with a 
blind passion for its particular religion, and when the modern 
idea of toleration was everywhere unknown, the alternative 
was to convert the man of another faith or put him to death. 
Add that in this case the man of the strange faith was also 
an alien in blood, and you have a double reason for treating 
him with rigor. The unity of the nation as well as the unity 
of the Church demanded his expulsion as a poison likely to 
infect the whole frame. The people of Spain chotv to take 
this dark view of the heretical and unassimilated peoples in 
their midst, and the government of Ferdinand and Isabella 
adopted the opinion, and created, with the aid of the Church, 
the system of repression called the Inquisition. Tribunals, 
supporting a special police force and their own prisons, and 
operating with the secrecy and silence of the grave, were 
created at various places, and the whole organization was 
put in charge of a Grand Inquisitor. How solemnly this The work of 
institution interpreted its task is witnessed by the fact that inqui F sfto?. rand 
during the reign of the first Grand Inquisitor, Thomas de 
Torquemada, who held the office for fifteen years (14S3- 
1498), about 9,000 persons were burned alive, 6,000 were 
burned in effigy, and 90,000 were condemned to ecclesiasti- 



40 The European States 

cal and civil penalties. 1 The death by fire, a public per- 
formance dignified under the name of auto-da-fe, or act of 
faith, drew large crowds of interested, applauding, and even 
devout spectators. The vast majority of the Spanish peo- 
ple, it has just been said, approved of the Inquisition. But 
they paid a heavy penalty for their lamentable intolerance by 
subjecting themselves to a terrible and invisible authority and 
by depriving their minds of that vigor and elasticity which 
result from the free and unhindered play of ideas. In con- 
sequence, they never developed those mental qualities which 
lead to an intelligent political opposition, and fell helplessly 
under the absolute yoke of the king. 

England. 

References: Gardiner, A Student's History of England, 
pp. 343-61 ; Green, A Short History of the English 
People, pp. 288-303 ; Terry, History of England, 
pp. 494-5 12 - 

England passed through momentous vicissitudes in the 
fifteenth century. Under the ambitious monarch Henry V. 
she had become engaged in a policy of foreign conquest. 
But though Henry V. had conquered France, Henry VI. 
(1422-61) had lost all his continental possessions again 
except Calais. Worse than this, under this same well- 
intentioned but weak-spirited monarch she fell a prey to 
civil war. The House of York, related to the reigning 
House of Lancaster, ventured to put forth a claim to the 
throne, and the war that ensued, called the War of the Roses, 
lasted until 1485. In that year Richard III., the last direct 
male heir of the House of York, was defeated and killed at 
the battle of Bosworth. The victor, himself of the House of 

1 These figures are probably exaggerated. A careful Catholic his- 
torian (Gams) estimates the executions from 1481 to 1504 at 2,000. 



At the Beginning of the Modern Period 41 

Tudor, but at the same time a descendant on the female 
side of the House of Lancaster, succeeded to the throne as 
Henry VII. (1485-1509). Through the marriage of Henry 
VII. to Elizabeth, a daughter of Edward IV. of the House of 
York, the new House of Tudor united the claims of both The House 
contending houses. The situation, as is usual after bitter in- 
ternal broils, remained precarious, and Henry had to face 
several civil disturbances in his reign; but as he had the 
Parliament and the nation back of him, he managed to 
maintain order and bring the ruinous War of the Roses to 
an end. 

Under Henry, an extremely able and cautious man, there Henry VII. 
grew up in England the "strong Tudor monarchy." Com- " strong mon- 
pared with such warrior predecessors as Edward III. and w ^- 
Henry V., Henry VII. exhibits the figure of a crafty and 
suspicious politician. For such a one the situation offered 
a unique opportunity. Traditionally, the power in England 
lay in the hands of the king and the Parliament, composed 
of the two houses of the Lords and the Commons. But as 
at this time the House of Lords was more influential than the 
House of Commons, the power in England lay practically, 
as everywhere in feudal times, with king and lords, lay and 
spiritual. Now the long civil war, which was really a war 
of two noble factions ranged under the banners of York and 
Lancaster, had made great havoc among the ranks of the no- 
bility. Moreover, it had confirmed among the trading mid- 
dle classes the desire for peace. The king found the nobility 
diminished in authority, and the common people disposed to 
concur in the repression of the ruling class. He determined 
to profit by this situation. It will be remembered that abso- 
lutism was in the air at the time, as is witnessed by the case 
of France and Spain. Without breaking any laws Henry 
managed to reduce to a minimum the importance of his 
partner in the government, the Parliament, by the simple 



42 



The European States 



Henry curbs 
the nobles. 



Parliament 
remains in 
control of 
taxation. 



Henry's policy 
of peace. 



device of calling it together as little as possible. Only twice 
during the last thirteen years of his reign did he take counsel 
with the representatives of the nation. Parliament was 
legally associated with him in governing England, but 
when it did not occupy the stage he was left without a 
rival. 

Perhaps no other matter claimed so much of Henry's 
attention as the danger arising to the commonwealth from 
the nobility. They were in the habit of defying the law 
through their strong castles, their numerous following, and 
their power to control or overawe the local courts. By 
the statutes against " livery and maintenance " he forbade 
them to keep armed and liveried retainers; then, to weaken 
them further, he assumed the right to summon them before a 
special court of justice called the Star Chamber Court, which 
sat at London, was composed of members of his council, 
and was dependent on himself. The protection of the local 
courts, which they dominated by threats or influence, was 
thereby rendered useless. Peace, rapid and complete, was 
the result. Of course the credit of the king was greatly 
augmented. In fact, England would have fallen as com- 
pletely into the hands of her sovereign as France had done, 
if the law had not remained upon her statute-books that the 
king could raise no tax without the consent of his Parliament. 
This provision neither Henry VII. nor any of his successors 
dared to set aside. Thus, although not strictly observed, 
it remained the law of the land, and in the course of time, 
when the common people had acquired wealth and self- 
reliance, it was destined to become the weapon by which the 
"strong monarchy" was struck to the ground and Parlia- 
ment set in the monarch's place. 

It was chiefly to rid himself of Parliament and to strength- 
en the monarchy internally that Henry kept clear of foreign 
war. War would have required money, and money 



At the Beginning of the Modern Period 43 

would have required a session of Parliament, from which 
might have come an interference with the king's plans. 
Henry, who had the sound sense to be satisfied with 
doing one thing thoroughly, did not let himself be drawn 
from his home plans by the prospect of barren victories 
abroad. 

It was during the reign of Henry VII. that Columbus Henry secures 
discovered America. England was not yet a great sea- North 1 ° 
power, but Henry managed to secure at least a claim to the Amenc a- 
New World by sending out John Cabot, who, in 1497, dis- 
covered the continent of North America. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CHURCH 

References: Emerton, Mediaeval Europe, Chapter XVI. 
(excellent) ; van Dyke, Age of. the Renascence (primar- 
ily a history of the Papacy) ; Robinson, History of West- 
ern Europe, Chapters XVL, XVII. ; Lea, A History of 
the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, 3 vols, (a scholarly 
account of mediaeval heresies, abuses, and the origin of 
the friars) ; Lea, A History of Auricular Confession and 
Indulgences, 3 vols.; Jessopp, The Coming of the Fri- 
ars; Creighton, History of the Papacy (councils, the 
temporal power, the first phase of the Reformation; 
from a Protestant point of view); Pastor, History of 
the Popes (1305 -15 13) (a scholarly work by a Catholic). 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings in European His- 
tory, Vol. I., Chapters II., XVL, XVII. ; Thatcher and 
McNeal, A Source Book for Mediaeval History, Sec- 
tions V. and VIII. ; Vol. III., No. 6 (heresies, Albi- 
genses, etc.); Translations and Reprints, Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, Vol. IV., No. 4 (examples of 
ex-communication and interdict). 

The mediaeval It would be like giving a play without the hero to enumer- 
state. ate the states of Europe at the beginning of the Modern Period 

without presenting the greatest state of all — the Church. 
For a citizen of the twentieth century, above all for an 
American citizen, it is very difficult to realize what the 
Church was before the movement called the Reformation. 
For most of us a church is simply an organization which 
provides for the spiritual welfare of its members. This 
purpose the mediaeval Church tried to satisfy and in the 

44 



The Church 45 



fullest degree, but it also did a great deal more, and by 
exercising authority over its subjects in a great many matters 
that are now considered to belong more properly to the 
civil government, acquired the character of a state. We 
must, therefore, accustom ourselves to think of the mediae- 
val Church not only as a spiritual association, but also as 
endowed with many of the essential functions of a state. 
Let us examine it under this double aspect, turning first to 
its organization. 

The Church embraced all western Europe, and all nations Extent and 
from Poland to Spain, from Ireland to Italy, owed allegiance Cffhe Church, 
to it. Its head was the Pope, who resided at his capital, 
Rome, and exercised an immense power by reason of the 
fact that he controlled the election of the bishops, appointed 
to many ecclesiastical offices, and approved all legislation. 
The territory of the Church was divided into dioceses, at 
the head of which stood bishops, while the dioceses were 
subdivided into parishes, presided over by priests. Priest, 
bishop, Pope, gives the ascending scale of the essential gov- 
erning officials of the Church; but there are others which we 
cannot afford to neglect. Several dioceses were for the sake 
of convenience thrown together into a province, and one of 
the bishops thereof granted a kind of headship, under the 
name of archbishop. Legates were important officials in 
the nature of ambassadors, who carried the Pope's com- 
mands abroad, and spoke in his name. Very noteworthy 
were the cardinals. They were the highest dignitaries under 
the Pope, were associated with him in governing the Church, 
and upon them, constituted as a college or board, devolved 
the important business of electing each new successor of 
St. Peter. 

This organization went back in the main to very early The monks. 
Christian times. In the course of the Middle Ages there 
had grown up another body of churchmen who exercised 



46 The Church 



great influence — the monks. The monks were organized 
in societies called orders, dwelt in monasteries, and owned 
much land and many churches. The earliest and most 
famous order was the Benedictines, with the Cistercians, 
Carthusians, and others following in their footsteps. Later, 
in the thirteenth century, the two famous orders, the Francis- 

The friars. cans and the Dominicans, came into being, fashioned in the 
heat of a great religious revival and pledged to ideals some- 
what different from those of their earlier brethren. The 
older orders— all organized more or less on the Benedictine 
type — emphasized the life of studious contemplation of di- 
vine things in seclusion from the world and its temptations. 
The Franciscans and Dominicans, on the other hand, sought 
out the crowded centres to dispense among the poor and 
heavy-laden the offices of Christian charity. Dedicated to 
poverty, chastity, and obedience, and seeking their living, 
at least at first, from door to door, they were distinguished 
from the older monks under the name of begging brothers 
or friars (from Latin f rater, i.e., brother). 

The rivalry The heads of monasteries were called abbots or priors. 

abbotsand They and their flocks were usually subject to the juris- 

bishops. diction of the bishop in whose diocese they resided, but 

occasionally individual abbots and, in the case of the beg- 
ging friars, the orders themselves had obtained the right 
from the Pope to be responsible only to him. Naturally the 
Pope profited by this arrangement, for he acquired an army 
of immediate adherents. But the Pope's gain was the 
bishop's loss. In every diocese there was created a sharp 
competition, because the bishop and his following of priests 
looked with unconcealed displeasure upon the abbot or 
prior with his rival host of monks aud friars, and many were 
the regions that were riven with this conflict. 

The clergy is The officials of the Church from Pope to priest, and in- 
' L ' eluding the monastic orders, formed one of the component 



The Church 47 



classes of the feudal state, and were called the clergy. The 
importance of the clergy appears from the fact that they 
everywhere composed the -first estate. The rest of the in- 
habitants constituted the laity. The laity, however, in its 
turn, consisted of two classes, an upper, embracing the 
nobility, called the second estate, and a lower, composed of 
commoners — that is, merchants, peasants, artisans, and day- 
laborers — and named the third estate. In the government of Clergy and 
the Church the laity had no voice whatever, for that privilege £U ^' 
was reserved exclusively to the clergy, in recognition of the 
fact that only through their mediation, and by reason of the 
authority and jurisdiction vested in them, could the great 
work of saving human souls be carried on. 

We have now seen how the Church was governed. We 
have also seen that there was a governing class of Christians 
of particular distinction called clergy, set over a far more 
numerous class called laity. Even so, if the governing clergy 
had governed only in matters spiritual, there would be no 
reason for speaking of the Church as a state. But it en- The Church 
gaged in other, distinctly secular activities, in the enumera- system of 
tiori of which its judicial prerogatives deserve the first place. J ustlce - 
The Church possessed its own body of law called canon law, 
made up of acts of councils and decisions of Popes, and pro- 
nounced justice in its own courts. To these courts, con- 
ducted by ecclesiastics in ecclesiastical buildings, the clergy 
were exclusively answerable, which means that they could 
not be cited before the civil courts, while the laity itself had to 
appeal to them in many matters, such as marriage and di- 
vorce, which the state has since taken under its own juris- 
diction. From this situation it followed that the individual 
ecclesiastic owed a primary allegiance to the Church, while 
the individual layman was expected to render obedience to 
two states, each claiming sovereignty over him in certain 
respects. 



4 8 



The Church 



The Church 
taxes, marries, 
educates. 



Relation of 
Church and 
state. 



The Church also levied taxes. Finding the income from 
its immense estates insufficient to maintain its organization t 
it collected in every community of Europe a tax called tithe, 
amounting, as the word indicates, to one-tenth of the annual 
produce of the soil. If we add that the Church had complete 
control of marriage and divorce, probated wills, and had 
charge of education — all matters considered nowadays to be- 
long to the competence of the state — we get some idea of the 
varied activity of the clergy in the Middle Ages. But lei no 
one dream for a moment that these prerogatives were unlaw- 
ful usurpations. They were exercised by the Church by 
universal consent, and every unprejudiced student will ac- 
knowledge that they were exercised in the main to the ad- 
vantage of humanity. But they show very clearly that 
the Church of the Middle Ages discharged many of the func- 
tions which are reserved at present to the state. 

A curious subject for modern reflection is how this state 
contrived at all to accord with the various civil states with 
which it existed side by side, and which it in a sense com- 
prised. To begin with, the harmony was never perfect. 
The Church trenched upon so many prerogatives that were 
of the essence of sovereignty, that the state, also claiming 
sovereignty, grew jealous and alarmed. Two heads of 
equal authority are calculated to produce discord in this 
imperfect world, and yet, none the less, the Church and state, 
united for better and for worse, endured one another for 
many centuries. The explanation of the prolonged union 
lies in the fact that whenever there was a clash the weaker 
gave way, and the weaker in the Middle Ages was usually 
the state. This subordination of the civil to the spiritual, 
so astonishing to the modern mind, is explained by the favor 
with which the people of all classes regarded the Church. 
Quite apart from the awe which it inspired as the dispenser 
of eternal bliss, it had conferred so large a number of solid 



The Church 49 



benefits in protecting the weak against the strong, in preach- 
ing peace, and in spreading enlightenment that men looked 
up to it with love and trust, and defended it, when occasion 
arose, against all opponents, including the state. 

So much for the power and the splendor of the Church. The Church 
A.nd yet not to recognize at the heart and core of this mag- f sav ing souls, 
nificent structure, covering the whole earth, the simple 
mission of saving souls which it had received from Christ* 
would be to take the shell and let the kernel go. Whatever 
else the Church did, it certainly considered its main business 
to be the guidance of mankind in the spirit of Christ's teach- 
ings, and in this mystic calling lay its chief hold upon the 
mediaeval mind. The Church received the new-born babe 
into its fold immediately after birth with the rite of baptism. 
If the growing boy sought instruction, he could get it only 
from the schools conducted by the clergy, for there were no 
others. Sin could be wiped out by repentance, but only the 
priest had the power to certify the Lord's forgiveness by 
means of confession and absolution. Marriage could be 
celebrated only with the sanction of the Church. Finally, 
when a man died, the priest granted or refused his body 
Christian burial. So from the cradle to the grave the 
Christian walked the path of life with his hand, like a child's, 
in the hand of his mother, the Church. The modern man 
relies, or aspires to rely, largely on his individual strength. 
We have remarked how this characteristic was fostered by 
the Renaissance. Since that time many men, perhaps pre- 
sumptuously, have not been afraid to face the mysteries be- 
yond the veil alone and unsupported. The mediaeval man 
abominated any such pretension as hollow and blasphemous. 
The Church was founded upon a rock, the one sure and abid- 
ing thing in a world of change. She had arisen in obedience 
to a fiat that fell from the mouth of God; she had been dow- 
ered with grace to cleanse man from the consequences of sin 



5o 



The Church 



The seven 
sacraments. 



i Ordination. 



2. Baptism. 



3. Confirma- 
tion. 



,,. Marriage. 



and reconcile him with the Father; finally, to him who yielded 
perfect obedience she opened, after a period of probation in 
purgatory, the gates of paradise. All this was accepted with 
such unconditional faith that the least doubt was looked 
upon as an enormity, and in case of persistence, invariably 
punished with death. 

It was this sacred character of the Church that made that 
appeal to which men have ever been most susceptible.. 
With hearts filled with piety and reverence they looked to 
her as the one sure door to salvation. And here we must 
enter for a moment the difficult realm of theology. The 
Church, recognizing the advantage of system, had taken the 
mystic faiths and practices of the early Christians and given 
them a precise theological formulation under the name of 
the seven sacraments. Chiefly by means of them the 
Church performed its work of saving souls, and when in the 
period of the Reformation the whole manner of this work 
was challenged, it was the sacraments that formed the par- 
ticular object of Protestant attack. Without a knowledge 
of them the movement inaugurated by Luther must remain 
a riddle. 

The fundamental sacrament was that of ordination, per- 
formed only by the bishop, and conferring upon the candidate 
to priesthood the sacerdotal character with the authority 
and power to perform other sacraments. By the sacrament 
of baptism the new-born child was received into the mem- 
bership of the Church. The holy water on his brow was a 
symbolic act, signifying that his share in the guilt of Adam's 
fall was washed away. When the boy reached the age of 
about twelve years he received, after due instruction in 
the creed, confirmation from the bishop, who rubbed holy 
oil and balsam on his forehead. The significance of this 
act was to strengthen him to resist temptation. The sac- 
rament of marriage bound man and wife in a holy bond 



The Church. 



51 



which must never be sundered. At the hour of death the 
priest stood by the bedside, and by anointing the dying man 
with holy oil strengthened the soul to pass through its or- 
deal. This was called the sacrament of extreme (or last) 
unction. If a man fell victim to temptation and sinned — and 
in the view of the Church man, owing to his wicked nature, 
was constantly sinning — he could receive pardon only by 
the sacrament of penance. This consisted of four parts: 
contrition over the sin committed, satisfaction (or repara- 
tion) for the sinful act, confession to a priest, and absolution 
by the priest. Finally there was the sacrament of the Holy 
Eucharist. It is the kernel of the mass, the noble and 
ancient service of the Church. During mass the bread and 
wine offered at the altar are mystically changed into the 
body and blood of Christ and given to the faithful in com- 
munion. The mystic change is called transubstantiation. 

It will be observed that one sacrament, ordination, con- 
ferred upon the priest an especial quality and character. On 
this quality rested largely the claim of the clergy to be re- 
garded as a body entirely distinct from the laity, and alone 
fitted to carry on the government of the Church. Other 
important consequences of the sacramental system demand 
attention. Since the sacraments were administered ex- 
clusively by the clergy, and since there was no salvation for 
sinful man without them, it follows not only that the clergy 
acquired an absolute command over all souls, but also that 
any requirements imposed in connection with the sacra- 
ments had to be conscientiously fulfilled. This brings us 
to the important matter of works, so fiercely attacked in the 
period of the Reformation. Not only did the sacraments, 
as described, impose a considerable number of ceremonious 
acts, but in the sacrament of penance lay the germ of a great 
many performances which require a further word. In ad- 
dition to contrition, confession, and absolution, penance 



5. Extreme 
unction. 



6. Penance. 



7. Holy Eu- 
charist or the 
Lord's Supper. 



Consequences 
of the sacra- 
mental system. 



The sacra- 
ments en- 
courage the 
belief in 
works. 



if 



52 



The Church 



to be complete called also for satisfaction. Now the theory 
of satisfaction is that, although the sin is forgiven by God 
by virtue of contrition, confession, and absolution, there 
remain certain temporal punishments which must be satis- 
fied either in this world through good works or in the next 
by prolonged punishment in purgatory. 1 It will be seen 
that penance with its demand for satisfaction encouraged 
the performance of good works, which might take the form 
of pilgrimages, acts of charity, or contributions to the 
ecclesiastical building fund, and which would be moral and 
exalting if not performed mechanically or through fear. 
And therewith we reach a later outgrowth and adjunct of 
the sacrament of penance — the Indulgences. The Church 
came to believe that the temporal punishment which accord- 
ing to the theologians is a sure consequence of sin, can be 
remitted by means of the application of the treasure of the 
Church. The treasure of the Church is the whole sum of 
the merits of Jesus Christ, in addition to all the good works 
of all the saints. The saints and martyrs suffered with 
patience many unjust tribulations, which, reckoned as mer- 
its, more than sufficed to expiate such sins as they themselves 
may have committed while on earth. All such good works 
in excess of what they needed to make satisfaction for their 
own sins are called works of supererogation, comprise the 
treasure of the Church, and may at the discretion of the 
Church, that is, of its head the Pope, be applied to the bene- 
fit of others, who are lacking in such good works. One of 
the ways in which the Pope distributes the treasure of merits 
is by means of personal certificates, issued for a greater or a 
lesser fee, and called Indulgences. 

1 The functions, according to Catholic theology, of hell, purgatory, 
and paradise are clearly brought out by the following quotation from the 
manual of Father Dati: "There are many Christians who when they die 
are neither so perfectly pure and clean as to enter heaven, nor so burdened 
with unrepented deadly sin as to go to hell. Such as these the Church be- 
lieves to be, for a time, in a middle state, called purgatory." 



The Church 53 



Since the clergy were the most exalted and richest class Corruption 

of tlic clcrffv 

in Europe — the first estate — they paid the usual price of 
power by more than ordinary exposure to temptation. All 
through the Middle Ages serious charges of corruption were 
preferred against them. Occasionally Popes and prelates 
inaugurated a reform, but in spite of these praiseworthy 
efforts the abuses persisted or cropped up again. Human 
nature is weak and frail even under surplice and cowl. 
The chief abuse was perhaps simony — the buying and selling 
of Church offices. The Church officially recognized simony Simony, 
as a sin, but many clergymen and even Popes were none the 
less guilty of it. So long as abbacies and bishoprics pro- 
duced huge revenues, it is easy to see how ambitious men 
should crave their possession even at the price of bribery. 
Another charge against the upper clergy was that they lived 
in pride and worldliness, quite out of keeping with followers 
of Christ and the apostles. Many rode to hunt and even to Worldliness. 
war, and lived in splendid palaces amid a round of festivals. 
The lower clergy were accused of squeezing excessive fees Fees, 
out of the parishioners for marriage, burial, and other nec- 
essary services, and there is reason to believe that many 
ecclesiastics of all ranks were guilty of gross carnal vices. Sensuality. 
To this latter charge the monks in particular seem to have 
laid themselves open. 

These shortcomings of the clergy were scourged by Permissible 
ardent and upright priests all through the Middle Ages, sible^ntkism 
sometimes even by men occupying the highest ecclesiastical 
positions. It did not derogate from the Church to make 
public recognition of the fact that some of its ministers were 
unworthy. Here then was a field of permissible criticism. 
But it was different when criticism began to gnaw at the 
organization and doctrine of the Church, stamped with a 
holy and unalterable character, and proclaimed and lauded 
as God's own handiwork. Against such critics the Church 



54 



The Church 



was armed with formidable weapons. She branded them as 
heretics, and launched her excommunication against them, 
excluding them from her fellowship and the association of 
the living. There she left them, for an ancient principle 
forbade her to shed blood; but the state, at this juncture, 
stepped in to seize the heretic as a public enemy and put 
him to death, usually by fire. 

In spite of these rigorous measures heresy and heretics 
were not uncommon in the Middle Ages. Even in that 
period of authority some men were inclined to urge their 
individual convictions. Of the occasional isolated heretics, 
who were perpetually cropping up at odd corners of Europe, 
there is no need to speak. But there were concerted move- 
ments, affecting a wide area, which really jeopardized the 
existence of the Church. Of these collective heresies, two, 
the Waldensian and the Albigensian, gave the Church much 
concern about the beginning of the thirteenth century. The 
Waldensian movement originated with Peter Waldo of 
Lyons, who preached poverty, humility, and personal san- 
tihcation. He did not attack the Church directly, but pro- 
fessed to be able to do without it as a means of salvation. 
The Albigensians, who were particularly strong in a town of 
southern France called Albi — hence their name — went much 
further, asserting that the religion of their time was false and 
the Church a usurper. The Church treated both sects as 
enemies, but naturally felt more implacably hostile toward 
the Albigensians. When the ordinary method of excom- 
munication proved ineffective, Pope Innocent III. in 1208 
preached a crusade against them, which resulted in their be- 
ing crushed in a general and horrible massacre. To com- 
plete the work of the crusade, the Inquisition was invented. 
It was composed of special tribunals, that is. ecclesiastical 
law-courts, which investigated disbelief, and brought the of- 
fenders to punishment This is the first appearance of this 



The Church 55 



famous institution, which afterward acquired so unenviable 
a reputation in Spain. 

But the tale of mediaeval heresy does not end here. In the Wyclif,, 
fourteenth century John Wyclif of England attacked the 
Pope, criticised Indulgences, pilgrimages, and other features 
of the Church, and soon boasted a considerable following. 
He himself was not seriously molested, and died peaceably 
in his bed in 1384; however, his followers, called Lollards, 
were presently persecuted and hunted to death. But criti- 
cism was in the air and had come to stay. Wyclif, dying, 
passed on the torch of protest to John Huss of Bohemia, and Huss. 
when Huss was sentenced to be burned at the stake by the 
General Council of the Church, sitting at Constance (1415), 
his death raised such a commotion among his countrymen 
and followers that, although crusade after crusade was 
preached against them, they were not crushed for manv 
years. 

As Wyclif followed the Waldensians, and Huss Wyclif, 
so Huss found a successor in Martin Luther. The revolt 
inaugurated by him stamped its name and character on the 
first century of the Modern Period. Why Luther's move- 
ment succeeded where so many earlier ones had failed 
will appear in the following pages. 



PART I 
THE REFORMATION 



CHAPTER IV 

THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY TO THE PEACE OF AUGS- 
BURG (1555) 

References: Johnson, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 
Chapters II., III., IV., V.; Henderson, A Short His- 
tory of Germany, Vol. I., Chapters X.-XV.; Fisher, 
History of the Reformation, Chapters III., IV., V.; 
Kostlin, Life of Luther; Beard, Martin Luther and 
the Reformation in Germany until the Close of the Diet 
of Worms; Emerton, Desiderius Erasmus (excellent); 
Armstrong, Charles V.; -Creighton, History of the 
Papacy Vol. V., (a Protestant view of Luther and the 
revolt); Janssen, History of the German People Vol. 
III., (a Catholic view of Luther); The Cambridge 
Modern History, Vol. I., Chapters XVI., XVIL; 
Vol. II., Chapters V.-VIII. 

Source Readings: Translations and Reprints, Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, Vol. II., No. 6 (the ninety-five 
theses, the twelve articles of the peasants); Wace and 
Buchheim, Luther's Primary Works (contains the 
ninety-five theses and three important pamphlets); 
Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., Chapters XXIV., XXV., 
XXVI.; Luther, Table Talk. 

We are aware from our general survey that Germany at Uplift of 
the beginning of the Modern Period was a federal state, i n e t h£ an e 
known officially as the Holy Roman Empire; that this Renaissance, 
federal state was almost ludicrously weak and disorganized; 
and that under Maximilian I. (1493-1519) some slight 
improvement had taken place in consequence of a general 

59 



6o 



The Reformatio?! in Germany 



The Protestant 
revolution 
results from 
the general 
progress 
of the world. 



Italian and 
German 
humanism 
compared. 



cry for reform. The movement for reform was itself the 
result of the uplift of German life which had set in with 
the Renaissance. Having followed the awakened German 
people in their demand for an improved organization of 
government, let us now take note how the Renaissance 
affected their thought and life, and above all altered their 
ancient relation to the Church. In observing these phe- 
nomena we acquaint ourselves with the origin of the 
greatest movement of the sixteenth century, the Refor- 
mation. 

We have referred to the Albigenses, Wyclif, and Huss to 
show that the Church did not rule unchallenged even in the 
Middle Ages. The weakness of these movements of protest 
was that they sprung from special conditions and remained 
localized. The defiance flung down by Luther in the six- 
teenth century was much more intimately bound up with the 
whole life and progress of the time. In fact, the Reforma- 
tion would have been impossible without that vigorous for- 
ward movement called the Renaissance. Therefore, the 
Italian trader when he brought back to Europe the spices 
of Arabia, Columbus when he discovered America, and 
Gutenberg when he invented printing, may be said to have 
helped prepare it. But chiefly the movement of Luther had, 
from its nature, to be matured in the realm of the spirit. 
The mediaeval Church owed its power to the fact that it had 
its root in the universal mind of Europe; in the mind and 
by the mind alone could it be successfully attacked. Thus 
the origin of the revolt led by Luther, although it was fed 
from a score of sources, can be most clearly followed in the 
history of that intellectual revolution already touched upon 
under the name of the revival of learning. 

The revival of learning, originating in Italy, was essen- 
tially an attempt to replace the dry and profitless scholastic 
studies by the fresh fountains of life which flowed in classical 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) 61 

literature. From Italy the movement spread over Europe, 
but naturally in every country it was modified in accordance 
with the national character. When it reached Germany 
it quickened, much as in Italy, the interest in the classics 
and instilled in men a new joyousness, but it was mainly 
serviceable in giving a fresh vigor to the old theological 
studies. The Italian, with his lively sensations and im- 
pulsive temperament, became so entirely identified with the 
secular side of the new learning that he was seized with a 
violent revulsion of feeling against all that signified the 
Middle Ages. He was tempted to cut loose from the Church 
entirely, as from an exploded superstition, and many hu- 
manists frankly threw over their old faith as useless ballast 
and avowed themselves to be pagans. Not so the German 
students. They had been profoundly interested in theology 
in the Middle Ages and they sturdily remained true to their 
old love in the Renaissance; only, inspired by the light that 
had risen in Italy, they resolved that the whole body of 
Church lore must be critically examined and harmonized. 
The Italian humanists had quickened the historical instinct 
by opening an avenue to classical antiquity. Would not 
the German humanists be performing an equally important 
service to mankind if they found the way back to Palestine 
and the primitive bases of Christianity? Here then lay the 
special work which the German humanists undertook. They 
turned to the Fathers of the Church and to the Bible itself, 
in order to drink of the original fountains of their faith. 
With their new knowledge they then approached the Church 
of their own day, and were not slow to discover and publish 
to the world its many shortcomings. Theirs was a double 
work of scholarship and criticism, which went on side by side. 

These German humanists tried to wedge their way into The German 
the universities and naturally met with resistance from the umanis 
old-time theologians, virulent enemies of anything that 



62 The Reformation in Germany 

smacked of free investigation. However, by the beginning 
of the sixteenth century a considerable number of seats of 
learning, with Erfurt and Wittenberg at their head, had 
opened their doors to the new thought. One of the pioneers 
Reuchlin. in university circles was John Reuchlin (1455-1522), through 

whose life we can perhaps best get at what was significant in 
German humanism. Reuchlin had been led by his interest 
in the Old Testament to the study of Hebrew, of which lan- 
guage he published a grammar and lexicon in 1506. It con- 
stituted a notable achievement of scholarship in his day, but 
to the theologian of the old school the occupation with He- 
brew, the tongue of a detested people who had rebelled 
against God, was nothing short of sin. Reuchlin was venom- 
ously attacked by the professors of the university of Co- 
logne, who were Dominican friars of a conservative and back- 
ward type. Universities, it must be remembered, were at 
that time still conducted as adjuncts of the Church, and were 
largely in the hands of the various orders of monks. The 
humanists gathered around their threatened leader, and a 
war of pamphlets followed, which is chiefly remarkable for 
having stirred up public opinion and for having carried the 
humanistic propaganda out of the restricted university circle 
into the ranks of general society. One incident of the literary 
polemic made an indelible impression. Reuchlin's friends 
The "Letters published an impertinent satire, called the " Letters of Ob- 
1 Men. ,S,CUre scure Men" (1515-17), which purported to be a series oi 
epistles written by former students and admirers to one of 
the Cologne professors. The fun lay in having the fossil- 
ized theologians reveal, by means of an intimate corre- 
spondence from which all restraints w r ere removed, their 
own ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and secret viciousness, 
and all this in an even exaggerated version of the gro- 
tesque Latin current among the schoolmen. Much of the 
sport was of the nature of rude horse-play, but it did its 



To the Peace of Augsburg {iJSS) 63 

work, and fairly buried the old theology under a tempest 
of inextinguishable laughter, which swept the length and 
breadth of Germany. 

Ulrich von Hutten (d. 1523), who had a hand in the com- Huties, 
position of the " Letters of Obscure Men," is another interest- 
ing figure of this period. While Reuchlin is exclusively the 
scholar, the professor, Hutten is more the literary man and 
journalist, who popularizes the results of scholarship. The 
critical material which humanism, whether in Italy or Ger- 
many, supplied, he forged into a weapon wherewith he smote 
the defenders of the old abuses in Church and state. He 
wrote in his native German, frankly seeking to reach the peo- 
ple, and with his biting pen made many converts. 

But the most important figure in the humanistic circles Erasmus. 
of Germany as well as of all Europe was Erasmus (1467- 
1536). Though born at Rotterdam he lived in turn in every 
country of Europe, and always regarded himself as a cosmo- 
politan. No humanist exercised so wide an empire as he, for, 
though a scholar, he did not bury himself in solitude, but 
grappled with the burning questions of the day. He wrote 
in Latin, which was still so generally read and spoken that 
its use secured to the writer the educated classes of all 
Europe as an audience. 

Erasmus's most important work of scholarship was his Erasmus and 
edition, the first to appear in print, of the New Testament Testament, 
in the original Greek (15 16). It was the opening shot in 
the "long war of Biblical criticism, which has agitated the 
world ever since. He added a Latin translation, piously 
hoping to create an enthusiasm which would lead to the 
translation of the Scriptures into all the tongues, and raise 
them into what they never were in the Middle Ages, a 
household book. "I long," he wrote, "that the husband- 
man should sing them to himself as he follows the plough, 
that the weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, 



6 4 



The Reformation in Germany 



Erasmus 
popularizes 
classical 
culture. 



His satirical 
writings. 



The early 
humanists 
criticise, but 
do not fall 
away from 
the Church. 



that the traveller should beguile with them the weariness of 
his journey." 

Thus in close connection with his work of erudition Eras- 
mus pursued the aim of popular improvement, in the belief 
that men must be better educated if the ills of society were 
ever to diminish, and the reign of sweetness and light be es- 
tablished. His many editions and anthologies of the Latin 
authors were all put out in this spirit, and even his occasional 
satirical writings were informed with this same noble sen- 
timent. His most famous production in this vein was his 
"Praise of Folly" (1509), wherein he lashes mercilessly the 
luxury of the prelates, the wars of ambitious princes, and, 
above all, the slothfulness and bigotry of the monks, whom 
he especially detested. But the book, though attacking 
abuses, is far from irreligious, for this great scholar typifies 
the spirit of northern humanism in that he always strove to 
walk in the ways of the Lord. 

Germany was in the midst of the intellectual agitation 
sown by Erasmus, Reuchlin, and their followers when 
Martin Luther made his appearance. He was the heir of 
their theological studies, to which he brought an even more 
fearlessly critical spirit than theirs; but he had also an im- 
pulsiveness, lacking in them, which soon plunged him into 
mortal strife with the old theology and the old Church. To 
the fighting platform which he presently adopted only the 
younger section of the humanists was willing to subscribe; 
many of the older men, with Erasmus at their head, depre- 
cated the violent turn of affairs and repudiated Luther's 
leadership. They had dreamed of reform by means of a 
gradual enlightenment of the human race, and now they 
were plunged into a state of war profoundly abhorrent to 
their refined and scholarly temperament. Their disappoint- 
ment rose to a high pitch, and Erasmus gradually withdrew 
from the public eye to sulk out the rest of his life in his study 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) 65 

What he failed to see was that the explosive attack of Luther 
was the inevitable practical climax of the scholarship and 
criticism to which he and his friends had dedicated their 
lives. 

Martin Luther was born November 10, 1483, in a village Martin 
at the foot of the Harz Mountains. His_ancestry for many u er ' 
generations back had been hard-working peasants, and 
peasant sturdiness and simplicity, with much of peasant 
obstinacy and superstition, remained characteristic of this 
son of the soil to the end of his days. By personal sacrifices 
his parents managed to send young Martin to the university 
of Erfurt for the purpose of making a lawyer of him, but in 
the year 1505, following what appears to have been an 
irresistible religious impulse, he abandoned his legal studies 
and joined the Augustinian order of friars. He took his 
new duties with such grim seriousness that he soon won the 
applause of his superiors and was rapidly advanced in honor 
and responsibility. The elector of Saxony had lately 
founded a new university at Wittenberg. In 1508 Luther 
was added to its faculty and rose soon to be professor of 
theology. Shortly after (1511), he was sent to Rome on 
business of his order, and at the capital of Christianity 
received an indelible impression of the corruption of its 
governors. On his return he assumed also the duties of 
preacher in the town church, and rapidly became a moral 
force in the community. All things considered, Luther, 
on approaching middle age, was embarked upon a career 
unfolding a prospect of great influence and success. 

But much more important to Luther than these worldly Luther': 
preferments were the doubts and questions which beset him 
all the days of his youth. We have seen that the mediaeval 
Church maintained the conception of an offended God to be 
appeased by sinful man by means of the sacraments and 
holy works, involving confession, prayers, pilgrimages, fasts. 



66 



The Reformation in Germany 



Justification 
by faith. 



Luther's doc- 
trine implies 
an attack on 
the clergy and 
the sacra- 
mental system. 



and flagellations. The theology of the Church insisted em- 
phatically on faith and contrition, but by the multiplication 
of ceremonies and outward acts of worship, the necessity 
of the soul seeking to put itself at peace with God, as a 
preliminary to all else, was frequently neglected. Luther 
observed that the average layman was imagining that he 
was a good Christian when he went mechanically through 
his round of ceremonies. He went through them conscien- 
tiously himself, but when they failed to appease his scruples 
he began to look about for another avenue of approach 
to God. Being a man of an essentially religious disposition, 
his doubts became a moral torture until he was visited by the 
illumination that God descended like a dove of peace upon all 
who put their simple faith in Him. Faith — that was all 
which God required to lift His creature to a state of grace. 
Luther largely drew his convictions on this point from the 
Epistles of his hero St. Paul, and presently published them 
with fervor as a rediscovered truth. Such they hardly were, 
for faith was a pillar of the mediaeval Church — let the reader 
to assure himself examine the sacrament of penance; but 
the abundance of works had succeeded in covering the pillai 
until it was almost hidden from view beneath a thick, para- 
sitic growth. By emphasizing faith Luther harked back to 
a more primitive type of Christianity, and in any case formu- 
lated the doctrine which is the common basis of all Protes- 
tant churches. 

Again let it be said that Luther's favorite doctrine of 
justification by faith was not in any essential disagreement 
with the teachings of the Church. The view, still largely 
prevailing among Protestants, that the Church was content 
to prescribe a round of hollow practices, is based on igno- 
rance. Nevertheless, since externals were overdone in 
Luther's day, he saw fit to extol faith as the sole door to sal- 
vation, and, in the heat of quarrel, derived from this primary 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) &7 

position a number of consequences which the Church an- 
grily rejected. Faith, illuminating personal faith, such as 
Luther urged, implied man's direct union with God without 
the mediation of a priesthood. But the whole Church rested 
on the conception of a priestly caste, to which the administra- 
tion of the sacraments, the accepted means of salvation, was 
intrusted. Therefore Luther's teaching of faith logically 
carried with it an attack upon the clergy, the sacraments, 
and the works which the sacraments enjoined. Priesthood, 
sacraments, works, are the names of the positions which 
the Roman Church defends with all its might in the Refor- 
mation Period, while faith is the name of the weapon with 
which Luther and his followers conduct the attack. 

Luther was still far from seeing all these consequences, 
he was still exclusively revolving the question of faith in his 
mind, when there occurred the event which flung him into 
the centre of the world's interest, and inaugurated the move- 
ment of separation from the Church known as the Reforma- 
tion. In 151 7 a Dominican friar, Tetzel, appeared on the 
confines of Saxony to sell Indulgences, and Luther came 
forward to protest against the practice. 

We have seen that Indulgences 1 were letters of pardon Corruption in 
issued by the Pope, and that they were closely associated 3 indS- 
with the sacrament of penance. The reader will also re- gences. 
member that they did not remit the sin and its eternal con- 
sequences, but only certain temporal penalties which were 
imposed by the priest and had to be gone through with in 
this world, or else had to be suffered in purgatory. The 
fee for which they were obtained went to the Pope, but the 
Pope let it be understood that he would devote the revenue 
to some Christian end, such as a crusade or the building of 
churches. However that may be, during the Renaissance, at 
least, a large part was diverted to other channels, and was 

1 See Chapter III., p. 52. 



68 



The Reformation in Germany 



The ninety- 
five theses, 
1517- 



Luther is 
carried into 
open revolt, 
i5->°. 



generally surmised to contribute to the scandalous luxury 
of the Roman court. 

The protest which Luther lodged against the new papal 
Indulgence hawked by Tetzel and other licensed venders 
through Germany took the form of ninety-five points or 
theses, which he proposed to argue, in the academic fashion 
of the time, with all comers in a public debate. He wrote 
them out in Latin, and nailed them to the door of the castle 
church of Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. They created 
an immediate sensation, were translated into German, and 
known in a few weeks throughout the land. Their immense 
popularity can only be accounted for on the ground that 
the abuse in connection with Indulgences was patent, that it 
offended the religious sentiment of the nation, and, above 
all, that the feeling was becoming more and more general 
that the Pope was abusing his prerogative, especially by 
squeezing undue sums out of the people for merely personal 
ends. 1 

When Luther published his protest against Indulgences 
he spoke as a good son of the Church, without the remotest 
idea of separating from it. His private reflections had not 
yet carried him so far. But the ninety-five theses loosed a 
torrent of discussion, by the irresistible course of which 
Luther was hurried from loyal criticism to open revolt. By 
1520 he found himself hopelessly at variance with the Church 
and definitely embarked on an independent course. The 



1 During the half century preceding the appearance of Luther signs of 
a growing discontent with the Papacy were accumulating among all classes 
of the nation. An official document of the year 1 5 1 o contains the following 
complaints: 

" That the better benefices and higher offices are reserved for the cardinals 
and chief officials of the papal court. Even when a bishopric is several 
times vacant within a few years, the Pope demands the prompt and full 
payment of the annates. Churches are given to courtiers, some of whom 
are batter fitted to be mule-drivers than pastors. Old Indulgences are 
revoked and new ones sold, merely to raise money. Tithes are collected 
under the pretext that a war is to be made against the Turks, etc." — Geb- 
hardt, Gravamina gegen den Romischen Hof. 





r 



( 









^^RhjMelC^K . 1 ' V* Jj". i I \ ( ' — ' t — 5W 

•r-?,\ - 



~£ ^^O^Tr^nw^rT^?"-' Minister" 7n~ ,"ppHi.\i"^ 



'afleiliorn 




SCOMlTE/f /V S 

..'—'■Neitcliatel :, 

CONFEDERATION 



f 



3-. -"'' ' ?7""^« i _x~^ c O N fI D 





_»..» Boundary of Empire 

- Boundaries of larger States of Empire 
. Boundaries of smaller States ofJEmpire 
d/o M ®~i& Imperial Cities 

J Hapsbitrg Territories 

•*j(q A. R Y 1 ' Bolieuwllern Territories 

I Ecclesiastical Territories 
NOTE TO THE STUDENT : 

1) Locate the territories of the seven 
electors, (indicated by stronger colors). 

2) Observe tha^ the Burgundian 
territories, -which fell to the Hapsburga 
by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to 
Maximilian, embrace largely fiefs of the 
German Crown. 3) Note extensive 
territories held by Bishops (purple). 

4) Note that there are many States of 
the Empire— largely free cities — too small 
to claim a place on a map of this scale, 

5) Note that the territories at the 
peripheries, Savoy, Milan, Swiss Con- 
federation, Netherlands, etc. had already 



iDRIATIC \ /['if* 

Sf.A V "^ ' Y^<t^\rH£ matthews-morthrup works, BurrALO, practically broken away from the Empire" 



To the Peace of Augsbi^rg (iSSS) 69 

three years from 1517 to 1520 mark the crisis of his move- 
ment of protest, when there was still a prospect that dis- 
cussion would lead to concession and turn the scales in favor 
of Christian unity. Alas, *«; was not to be, and all for reasons 
natural enough! Luther was a man of energy, amounting 
at times to violence; a lion when aroused. When the un- 
comprising partisans of the Church attacked him personally, 
he feverishly searched the Scriptures and their earliest ex- 
pounders for new evidence, and soon came across much 
matter in the Church besides Indulgences which he regarded 
as open to question. The attitude of the Pope, Leo X., 
was typical of the cultured Italian gentleman of the Renais- 
sance; he mildly wondered why the faithful of Germany 
were growing so excited over a purely theological issue. 
None the less he made some efforts to have the conflict 
hushed up by negotiations. But his agents were haughty 
and unskillful, and when in 1520 Luther attacked the 
prerogatives of the clergy, the sacraments, and the Pope 
himself, in a series of three fiery pamphlets, 1 open war was 
declared. The Pope now resolved to crush his adversary Luther ex- 
without mercy and issued a bull of excommunication which communicated, 
declared him a heretic. The document was equivalent to 
an order to the civil authorities to apprehend him and put 
him to death. But Luther was now past the point of fear. 
Amid a great concourse of applauding Wittenbergers he 
consigned the bull to a bonfire, and to leave no doubt as to 
his meaning he threw in the books of the canon law, which 
codified all the extraordinary privileges of the mediaeval 
Church. The breach was complete. It remained only to 
be seen for which side the people would declare. 

Germany had just passed through the throes of an im- Election of 

Charles V. as 



'They were: Concerning Christian Liberty; Address to the Christian emperor, 1519. 
Nobility of the German Nation; On the Babylonish Captivity of the 
Church. These three pamphlets contain the gist of early Protestantism. 
See Wace and Buchheim, Luther's Primary Works. 



JO The Reformation in Germany 

perial election. In January, 1519, the Emperor Maxi- 
milian had been gathered to his fathers, and after a partic- 
ularly spirited contest, in which the leading sovereigns of 
Europe came forward as candidates, the choice of the seven 
electors fell upon the king of Spain, who assumed the office 
under the name of Emperor Charles V. Charles owed his 
election not to the fact that he was king of Spain, but to 
his being the head of the House of Hapsburg and the most 
powerful prince of Germany. In the year 1520 he left 
Spain to be crowned with the usual elaborate ceremony at 
Aachen. Then he called a Diet at the city of Worms on 
the Rhine, where he first met with the parliament of the 
German nation. There were many matters demanding 
attention, but all were overshadowed in importance by 
the conflict raised by Luther. The Wittenberg professor 
had just been condemned by the Pope. It behooved the 
emperor and his Diet to declare what course they would take 
with reference to the papal sentence. 
Charles sum- Charles was at this time a lad of twenty-one years. He 

to his presence, had passed his life, so far, in the Netherlands and in Spain, 
where he had been brought up as a good Catholic, who might 
now and then criticise the abuses in the Church, but who 
in the main gave it an unhesitating allegiance. Therefore 
he, personally, was prepared to put down Luther. But there 
were other interests necessary to consider. So large a sec- 
tion of the German people and of the princes themselves 
had become adherents of Luther, that to condemn him un- 
heard might raise an insurrection. Accordingly, Charles 
agreed to have him summoned to Worms for a hearing, under 
a special pledge of safety. Luther's friends besought him 
not to walk into the lion's mouth, reminding him of the fate 
of Huss at Constance. "I would go, even if there were as 
many devils there as tiles on the house roofs," he answered 
fearlessly. On April 17, 1521, he appeared before the Diet. 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) Ji 

The scene is one of the impressive spectacles of history. Luther at 
The simple friar, whose life had been largely lived in seclu- Worms, 1521. 
sion, stood for the first time before his emperor, who sat upon 
a throne encircled by a brilliant gathering of ambassadors, 
princes, and bishops. As he let his eye travel over the faces 
of the throng, he encountered all gradations of expression, 
ranging from deep devotion to indifference and fierce hatred. 
He was urged to recant the heresies he had uttered. If he 
had yielded he might have won forgiveness, and the move- 
ment of revolt would in all likelihood have come to an end. 
But he insisted that he should be proved to be wrong by 
the words of Holy Writ. That was stating the crucial issue; 
to him the authority of the Bible on the points of belief 
which he had raised was higher than the authority of Pope 
and Church. "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God 
help me, Amen! " was the substance of his concluding speech. 
To cow this man was out of the question, especially as Worms 
Was seething with his followers. Permitted to depart as 
had been promised him, he was seized on the highway by 
servants of the friendly elector Frederick of Saxony, and 
carried secretly to the castle of the Wartburg in the Thurin- 
gian forest. There let him lie concealed, was the thought of 
his protector, until the crisis be over, and he may once more 
show himself without danger. 

Meanwhile Charles came to a decision. He could have Luther is 
no sympathy with a movement which threatened the unity fennel. C ° P 
of the Church. Further, his attention at that moment was 
fixed not on Germany but on Italy, where the position of 
his house was at stake. We must always remember that 
Charles was a sovereign with interests in the most widely 
separated regions, in Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, 
Italy, and America. In Italy the king of France had lately 
seized Milan, and Charles was resolved to oust him from 
that vantage point, from which he dominated the whole 



72 



The Reformation in Germany 



The Edict of 
Worms, 1521. 



The Edict of 

Worms is 

not carried out. 



Abandonment 
of many 
features of 
Catholicism. 



north of the peninsula. But in such an enterprise the papal 
alliance would prove very useful. With an eye to the help 
of the Pope against France, Charles resolved to strike at 
Luther. On May 26, 1521, he published the Edict of Worms, 
by which the heretic's life was declared forfeit and his 
writings were prohibited. Having thus settled, as he mis- 
takenly thought, the German difficulties with the stroke of 
a pen, Charles undertook the conquest of Italy. 

But the movement of the Reformation had already ac- 
quired too great a momentum to be stopped by an imperial 
order. If Charles could have remained in Germany to see 
personally to the execution of his decree against Luther, or 
if the real power in Germany had not lain with the princes, 
who, from the nature of the case, were divided in their sym- 
pathy, the history of the Reformation might have been dif- 
ferent. As matters stood, Charles was absent from the scene 
for the next nine years, and the princes, left to themselves, 
could come to no decisive agreement. Consequently the de- 
cree against Luther was not executed, and the revolution, en- 
couraged by the vacillation of the government, grew so strong 
that it soon reached the point where it could defy persecu- 
tion. 

Let us look more closely into what was happening at this 
time in the religious circles of Germany. Luther's opinions 
were advancing by leaps and bounds, and enthusiastic 
communities were beginning to put them into practice. 
They involved the abandonment of many of the most famil- 
iar features of mediaeval Christianity. Monks and nuns re- 
nounced their vows, resumed their places in society, and in 
many cases married; Luther himself set an example by 
wedding Catharine von Bora, a former nun. The monastic 
property reverted to the state, that is, enriched the princes 
and the cities. The Pope and the Roman hierarchy were set 
aside and their authority denied. Many ancient practices, 



To the Peace of Augsburg {iJSS) 73 

such as Indulgences, pilgrimages, worship of Mary and the 
saints, were condemned as meaningless and misleading works 
and abandoned. At the same time the Church service was 
materially changed. German was substituted for Latin, 
and the Mass, with its element of sacrifice, was declared 
idolatrous, its place being taken by a much simpler service, 
consisting of song, prayer, and sermon. 

With such ferment of opinion possessing the whole country, Excesses ot 
it is not unnatural that wild agitators occasionally caught tionists. 
the ear of the masses. In fact the Reformation was not 
many months old before its welfare was threatened more by 
its own extreme elements than by its Catholic opponents. 
Nobody saw this more clearly than Luther. He was re- 
solved that the movement should travel a sure road and at 
a moderate pace, and that whoever should venture to com- 
promise it by extravagances and illusions, or whoever should 
attempt to use it for ends other than those of the religious 
reform with which it had originated, must be abruptly ex- 
cluded from his party. These certainly not unwise consid- 
erations explain Luther's attitude toward the revolutions of 
the next eventful years. 

Luther was still living concealed in the Wartburg, where Luther follows 
he was turning his enforced leisure to the task of translating course . 
the Bible into German, when startling things occurred in the 
Saxon capital of Wittenberg. Radicals, who called them- 
selves prophets or Anabaptists, and who were joined by 
Carlstadt, one of Luther's own colleagues in the university, 
had begun to preach the destruction of the images which 
adorned the Catholic churches, and similar acts of violence. 
Luther, hearing of this nefarious propaganda, abruptly left 
the Wartburg and appeared among his flock (1522). His 
powerful word immediately brought his people back to order, 
and the "prophets" fled. 

But the revolutionary tendencies aroused by Luther's call 



74 



The Reformation in Germany 



Revolution of 
the Rhenish 
knights. 



The serfdom 
of the peasants. 



The great 

revolt, 

1524-25- 



to spiritual freedom were already spreading like wildfire. 
The petty knights of the Rhine region, who were dissatisfied 
with their political condition because they were in danger of 
being swallowed up by their more powerful neighbors, the 
larger princes, resolved to make use of the disturbed state of 
affairs by rising in revolution. They were put down after 
a short war (1522-23), and henceforth lost all significance 
as an order. But a far greater disturbance followed in the 
rising of the peasants. Since the Church was being success- 
fully reformed, why should not society and the state, which 
were no less cankered than the Church, be reformed too? 

That the peasants should have asked themselves this 
question was only natural in view of their extremely miser- 
able lot. They were for the most part serfs, which means 
that they were attached to the soil and were better than 
slaves only in that they could not be bought and sold, and 
were protected by a few traditional rights. But under the 
influence of the Roman law, which was steadily gaining 
ground with the revival of classical antiquity, their few re- 
maining rights were vanishing, and their condition was grow- 
ing steadily worse. Since they were a sturdy folk at heart, 
among whom the memories of former liberties persisted, a 
sense of injustice tormented them, and had already in the 
fifteenth century led to occasional risings. Now, in the six- 
teenth century, came the call of Luther to religious freedom, 
sounding like a trumpet through the land. Even without 
Luther they were ready to strike down the land-owning no- 
bles and abbots who oppressed them. With Luther as a 
prospective ally they were no longer to be kept in leash. 

In the year 1524 they rose, first near the border of Switz- 
erland; but with surprising rapidity the movement ate its 
fiery course northward into the heart of Germany. All 
lawless elements, including the so-called prophets of Witten- 
berg, crowded to the standards of the peasants. Their bands 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) 75 

patrolled the country-sides, invaded the hated castles and 
monasteries, burned them, and butchered their inmates. It 
is true there was a moderate section which put forward 
a sensible programme, called the twelve articles formu- 
lating the practicable demands of the insurgents. These 
were to have certain vexatious personal services due to the 
lord and his family, abolished, and the meadows, woods, and 
streams, which had once belonged to the villagers in common, 
but had since been seized by the lords, restored to their for- 
mer owners. Nevertheless, passion got the better of reason, 
and every night the fierce glare of the sky renewed the tale 
of ruined castles and abbeys. As usual, the central gov- 
ernment was incapable of taking actiorf, but the local au- 
thorities, that is, the princes, got together an army and in 
the spring of 1525 scattered the disorganized bands of the 
peasants to the winds. Hounded on by Luther in coarse 
pamphlets, the victors crowned their successes by a hideous 
massacre of the poor fugitives. That Luther, who was a 
peasant himself, and had frequently declared his sympathy 
with his lowly brethren, should have veered to the other side 
has subjected him to much criticism. It is not possible to Luther sides 
palliate the brutality of his language, but a word may be princes? 
said for the consistency of his conduct. He had declared 
over and over again, by word and by deed, that he stood for 
religious reform and would not permit his cause to be com- 
promised by political agitation. Let the cause of reform 
be confused in people's minds with social anarchy, and the 
conservative elements would be frightened away, and Rome 
be triumphant. For this reason he had challenged the Wit- 
tenberg prophets; for the same reason, though much more 
reluctantly, he turned his back upon the peasants. 

While Germany was seething with revolution, Charles V. The wars of 
was wholly engaged with the war against France. In fact, Spain? ^ 
the wars with France continued throughout his reign and 



7 6 



The Reformation in Germany 



prevented him from ever giving his full attention to the 
German Reformation. There were altogether four wars, 
covering the following periods: ist war, 1521-26; 2d war, 

i5 2 7- 2 9; 3 d war > I 53 6 ~3 8 ; 4th war, 1542-44- 

The first war ended with the signal triumph of Charles. 
Charles's general defeated the French army at Pavia in Italy 
(1525) and took the king of France himself, Francis I., cap^- 
tive. "All is lost save honor," was the laconic message which 
the French sovereign, celebrated as the mirror of chivalry, 
sent his mother at Paris. Charles had his royal prisoner 
transported to Madrid and there he wrung from him a peace 
(1526), by which Francis ceded all claims to Italy and parts 
of France itself (Burgundy and the suzerainty of Artois) to 
Charles. 

But hardly had Francis regained his liberty when he 
hastened to renew the war. Charles had overstrained the 
bow. Francis could buy peace by the cession to his enemy 
of Milan, a foreign conquest, but as long as there was life 
in France her king could not grant nor could she accept 
a partition of her territory. The Pope and Henry VIII. of 
England, who had hitherto favored Charles in the struggle 
between France and Spain, now went over to Francis from 
fear that the emperor was striving for supremacy in Europe. 
The most noteworthy incident of the second war was the 
sack of Rome (1527). The great French nobleman, the 
duke of Bourbon, who had turned traitor and had been put 
by Charles at the head of a mixed troop of Spaniards and 
of German Protestants, was ordered to march against the 
Pope for the purpose of punishing him for his alliance with 
Francis. At the moment at which the walls of the papal 
capital were scaled Bourbon fell, and the rabble soldiery, 
left without a master, put Rome to a frightful pillage. 

Although the advantage in the second as in the first war 
remained with Charles, he offered Francis somewhat more 



To the Peace of Augsburg (iSSS) 77 

acceptable terms (temporary retention by Francis of Bur- 
gundy) in new negotiations, which ended in the so-called 
Ladies' Peace of Cambray (1529). After the peace Charles 
had himself crowned emperor at Bologna (1530), and fig- 
ures in history as the last emperor who was willing to take 
so much trouble for an empty title. 

Charles, temporarily rid of France, was now resolved to Charles returns 
look once more into German affairs. In 1530, after an ab- The Diet of 
sence of almost ten years, he again turned his face north- ™^ urg ' 
ward. The Reformation was by this time an accomplished 
fact, but Charles, who during his absence had received his 
information from Catholic partisans and through hearsay, 
still inclined, as at Worms, to treat it as a trifle. He was 
destined to be rudely awakened. A Diet had been called 
to meet him at the city of Augsburg, and at the summons a 
brilliant assembly of both Lutheran and Catholic princes 
came together. Their sessions turned chiefly around the 
question whether or no the Edict of Worms of 152 1 should be 
at last executed. Unquestionably the Edict was part of the 
law of the land, and unquestionably its execution meant the 
death of Luther and the end of the young church which had 
grown up around him. Naturally the Lutherans made a 
supreme effort to vindicate themselves. They requested 
Melanchthon, a gentle soul and profound scholar, and at the 
same time the bosom friend of Luther, to draw up for the 
emperor's perusal a statement of the Lutheran position. 
The document, on being published, became known under 
the name of the Confession of Augsburg, and constitutes TheConfes- 
substantially the creed of the Lutheran Church to this day. Augsburg. 
But the emperor was not to be persuaded. If he had thus far 
treated the Reformation in a hesitating manner, that was 
partly because he had made the mistake of underestimating 
it, and partly because he had not been averse to frightening 
the Pope a little, who, even when he was not his open enemy, 



78 



The Reformation in Germany 



Civil war 
adjourned by 
the Turkish 
danger. 



was never his sincere friend. But he had just made his peace 
with the Pope, and even before coming to Germany had 
indicated from what quarter the wind now blew by ordering 
the Diet of Spires, in 1529,10 take back certain former con- 
cessions to the innovators, and once more to insist on the full 
execution of the Edict of Worms. Against this step the 
Lutheran members of the Diet had lodged a formal protest, 
which had won them the epithet, destined to become world- 
famous, of Protestants. Thus Charles was committed to 
a policy before ever he came to Augsburg. The hearing 
granted to the Protestants partook largely of the nature of a 
prearranged comedy, upon which, when it had lasted long 
enough, he rang down the curtain, and announced his deci- 
sion. In the matter of the religious innovations, the con- 
cluding protocol declared that everybody must abandon 
them within six months, or suffer the consequences. The 
bold challenge drove the Protestants to concert measures 
for defence. They met at the little town of Smalkald and 
organized a league for mutual protection (1531). 

Both sides now stood opposed to each other, ready for 
action; but just as civil war seemed to have become inevi- 
table, the news reached Germany that the Turks were about 
to attack Vienna. The Turks had already carried the terror 
of their name into eastern Germany two years before. In 
face of a danger threatening all alike, the civil struggle had, 
of course, to be postponed. In an agreement which Charles 
signed with the Protestants at Nuremberg (1532), he under- 
took to adjourn his measures against his opponents until a 
General Council of the Church had met to decide the doc- 
trinal points in dispute, and he was thus enabled to march 
against the Turks at the head of a brilliant army represent- 
ing united Germany. Before this display of force the Turks 
fell back. On his return Charles found other things to do 
than fight the German Protestants. The Mohammedan 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) 79 

pirates of the north coast of Africa, who were engaged in 
destroying the European commerce, urgently demanded his 
attention. For the next few years he gave his time to the 
destruction of their strongholds in Tunis and Tripoli, and 
thus the suppression of Protestantism in Germany was again 
postponed. To Charles all this must have been hard to 
bear. The French, the Turks, and the African pirates were 
among them keeping his hands full, and were always inter- 
cepting his arm at the very moment at which he was about 
to draw his sword against the Protestant revolution. 

On his return from Africa there broke out a third war New wars, 
with Francis I. of France (1536-38), only to be succeeded by tween Francic 
the fourth and last (1542-44), which was concluded by the t^.** 16 
Peace of Crespy. In this peace Charles definitely gave up 
his claim to Burgundy, and in return was confirmed in his 
mastery of the much-prized Italian peninsula. But the most 
striking feature of these last two wars, a feature which among 
contemporary Europeans caused an unspeakable surprise, 
was the alliance which Francis concluded against Charles 
with Soliman the Magnificent, the Turkish Sultan. It fur- 
nished fresh evidence of the broadening of life effected by 
the Renaissance. x\s the traders and discoverers had burst 
the narrow barriers of the Mediterranean, so European 
diplomacy henceforth would not hesitate to draw Asiatics 
and infidels into its game. 

The Peace of Crespy set Charles free to try once more to Charles fails 
eradicate the German heresy. He had staked his life upon heresy by a 
destroying it, but had been thwarted in every attempt. As R 61161 ^ 1 
early as 1521, in the Edict of Worms, he had announced his 
settled policy. But circumstances like the French wars, 
as well as a certain statesmanlike reluctance to proceed 
to force, had intervened to restrain him from carrying it out. 
Then, later, with the Peace of Nuremberg (1532), he had 
committed himself to the policy of reconciliation through a 



8o 



The Reformation in Germany 



Death of 
Luther, 1546. 



The first war 
of religion in 
Germany. 



General Council of the Church. A General Council could 
be summoned only with the consent of the Pope, who had 
thus far sullenly refused to issue a call. At last, in 1545, Paul 
III. yielded to Charles's solicitations and summoned the fa- 
mous Council of ...Trent. But the favorable moment had 
passed. The Protestants, who had gone too far on the path 
of separation to retreat, would no longer submit to it, and 
Charles had to acknowledge that he was at the end of his 
tether. Turn as he would, there was only one way left to 
crush the Protestants, and that was by war. So Charles, 
whose aversion to heresy and schism was unaltered, drew 
his sword, and precipitated the first German civil war over 
the issue of religion. 

Just before the outbreak of hostilities, on February 18, 
1546, Luther, whose word had raised the tempest, died. 
He was spared the final pain of seeing his countrymen in 
arms against each other, largely on his account. Certainlj 
his character had many grievous flaws, but jn looking back- 
ward over his life they disappear in the strong light shed by 
his honesty, simplicity^ and unflinching courage. If he has 
become dear to the German people and to the Protestant 
world in general, it is not only because he originated a relig- 
ious movement which has become an incalculable factor in 
the history of modern times, but also because his large, hale 
figure, seated at the family board and surrounded by a circle 
of fresh young faces, breathes a broad sympathy and hu- 
manity. 

The first war of religion in Germany, called also, from the 
name of the league of Protestant princes, the war of Smal- 
kald, broke out in the year of Luther's death (1546). The 
Protestant forces, commanded by the foremost Protestant 
princes, John Frederick of Saxony and Philip of Hesse, acted 
without a plan. Charles, advancing with concentrated en- 
ergy, ended the war with one stroke at the battle of Mtthl- 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) 81 

_berg (1547), where the leading Protestant prince, the elector 
of Saxony, was taken prisoner. The triumph of the em- 
peror was in no small measure due to the treachery of a 
Protestant relative of the elector, Maurice of Saxony. 
Maurice was a capable, unscrupulous man, who for the price 
of the electorate of his relative lent Charles his aid. The 
price once paid, he remembered that he, too, was a Protestant, 
and gradually cutting loose from the emperor prepared to 
undo the consequences of the victory of Muhlberg. 

Charles, after the victory of Muhlberg, which had ended The Interim, 
with the complete submission of the Protestants, undertook 
to reestablish the unity of the Church. There should be 
but one faith; so much he was firmly resolved on. But he 
clearly saw also that it would be the part of wisdom to proceed 
not too precipitately. He therefore did not force the Prot- 
estants back into the Church without delay, but declared 
himself content if they would accept a temporary measure 
called the Interim, which, although Catholic in spirit, 
granted them certain concessions until the Council of Trent 
had definitely pronounced upon the points in dispute. The 
Protestant world felt with consternation that in this half-way 
measure lay the beginning of the end. An increasing dis- General ris- 
content grew soon to a revolutionary enthusiasm, and when p ro testants. 
Maurice of Saxony came back to his coreligionists, Germany 
suddenly rose, and Charles found himself confronted by a 
united demonstration (1552). There can be no doubt that 
he was taken by surprise. Maurice, his chief opponent now, 
as a few years before he had been his chief ally, might even 
have taken him captive. "I have no cage for so fine a bird," 
he is reported to have said. So the emperor escaped. But 
his life-long war against the Lutheran heresy had come to 
an end. Broken by defeat, but too proud to acknowledge 
it, he empowered his brother Ferdinand to sign the truce of 
Passau (1552) with the Protestants. At the Diet of Augs- 



82 The Reformation in Germany 

burg, in the year 1555, the arrangements of Passau were 
replaced by a definitive treaty, known as the Religious 
Peace of Augsburg. 

The Peace of The main significance of the Peace of Augsburg lies in the 

ISS5 . ' fact that the mediaeval idea of the unity of the Christian 
Church was therein officially abandoned, and Lutheranism 
granted legal recognition as a separate faith. But the 
interest of the document does not cease here. Since the 
central government had failed to carry through its religious 
policy, it was stipulated that religion should henceforth be 
treated as a local matter, that is, the local governments, 
being the princes and the cities, should be permitted to choose 
between Catholicism and Lutheranism. This principle 
was expressed in the Latin phrase, cujus regio ejus religio, 
meaning that religion is an affair of the lord of the territory. 
Under this system the prince who chose Protestantism could 
eject all Catholics from his state, and vice versa. This is 
not what we would call religious toleration, since it gave the 
right of choice to princes and not to individuals; but in- 
dividual toleration seemed as yet a dangerous idea, to which 
the world, as in the case of every valuable acquisition made 
by the race, would have to grow accustomed by slow degrees. 

TheEccle- Such are the chief provisions of the Peace of Augsburg. 

vation. But there was another article which, as it became the fruitful 

mother of confusion, deserves close attention. It was in- 
serted in favor of the old Church, and is called the Ecclesi- 
astical Reservation. There were in Germany many bishops 
who were not only heads of dioceses, but who also ruled con- 
siderable territories as temporal lords. Since they exercised 
both lay and spiritual functions, they are properly designated 
as prince-bishops. It was laid down in the Ecclesiastical 
Reservation that to these prince-bishops the free choice 
between Catholicism and Protestantism accorded to lay 
princes should not extend. They were indeed to be per- 



To the Peace of Augsburg (1555) 83 

mitted to elect Protestantism for themselves, but they were 
obliged in that case to resign their sees, and Catholic suc- 
cessors would have to be chosen in their places. In essence 
this article was a guarantee that the lands of the bishops 
should remain forever and ever in the hands of the old 
Church, and, though the Lutherans protested, the article was 
incorporated in the Peace of Augsburg and became the law 
of the land. As might have been foreseen, difficulties almost 
immediately arose. It was found that in practice the ar- 
ticle could not be kept, for many bishoprics, following the 
trend of the day, soon fell into Protestant hands, and out 
of the ensuing recriminations developed in time another and 
a much more serious civil war. 

The victory of the Protestants over the emperor was Henry II. of 
not purchased without a heavy loss for Germany. Maurice quers t h e three 
of Saxony had found it necessary, in order to make sure of blsho P ncs - 
victory, to ally himself with Henry II. of France, and in the 
same year (1552) in which Maurice drove the emperor over 
the Alps Henry II. invaded Germany and occupied the 
bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Although Charles 
laid siege to Metz immediately upon the reestablishment of 
peace with the Protestants, the French were able to beat 
him off and retain possession of their conquests. This in- 
cident opens the long and troublesome story of the border 
conflicts between France and Germany which accompany 
the history of these two nations throughout the Modern 
Age. 

The emperor, whose life was worn out with his long Abdication of 
conflicts and labors, could not recover from the blow of Divfsicmof die 

these last disasters. He abdicated his crown (it;<6) and Hapsburg 

v JJ ' dominions, 

retired to the monastery of San Yuste in Spain, where he 

died two years later. Hardly in the history of the world 

has so proud a life set so humbly. Upon his abdication 

the vast Hapsburg possessions, which he had held in his 



84 Th ' Reformation in Germany 



sole hand, were divided. His son Philip got Spain (with 
her colonies), the Italian territory (Naples and Milan), and 
the Netherlands. His brother Ferdinand got the Austrian 
lands and therewith the imperial crown. Henceforth until 
the extinction of the Spanish line- (ivoo) we have in Europe 
a Spanish and an Awvviarv bta ; 'V of the great House of 
Hapsburg. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION IN EUROPE AND THE 
COUNTER-REFORMATION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 

References: Johnson, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 
pp. 201-3 (Zwingli), Chapter VL (Calvin and the 
Counter-Reformation); Fisher, History of the Refor- . 
mation, Chapter V. (Zwingli), Chapter VI. (Scandi- 
navian Reformation), Chapter VII. (Calvin), Chapter 
XL (Counter-Reformation); Jackson, Zwingli; Cam- 
bridge Modern History, Vol. II., Chapter X. (Switz- 
erland), Chapter XI. (Calvin), Chapter XVII. (Scandi- 
navia), Chapter XVIII. (Reform of the Roman Catholic 
Church); Parkman, Jesuits in America, Vol. I., Chap- 
ters II., X.; Hughes, Loyola; Walker, Calvin. 

Source Readings: The University of Pennsylvania, 
Translations and Reprints, Vol. II., No. 6 (extracts 
from Decrees of the Council of Trent); Vol. III., No. 3 
(Calvin's Catechism, Predestination, etc.) ; Jackson, 
Selected Works of Zwingli; Robinson, Readings, Vol. 
II., Chapter XXVII. (Zwingli, Calvin), Chapter 
XXVIII. (Trent, Jesuits). 

The Protestant movement spread rapidly from Ger- The spread of 
many over the Teutonic north, and even invaded southern 
Europe, making inroads upon France, Italy, and Spain. 
It met with opposition everywhere; sometimes it was sup- 
pressed, sometimes it forced the governments to come to 
terms with it; but wherever it raised its head its original 
form was modified more or less by the character of the 
people among whom it appeared, and by the local circum- 
stances. 

85 



86 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 



Denmark, 

Norway, and 
Sweden accept 
Lutheranism. 



The success of the Reformation was most complete and 
rapid in the Scandinavian north. Denmark, Norway, and 
Sweden, the three Scandinavian powers, had been united 
under one king since the Union of Calmar (1397). At 
the beginning of the sixteenth century the Union fell apart, 
owing to the fact that Sweden put an end to a discontent of 
long standing by reclaiming her independence. Under the 
powerful leadership of a member of the nobility, Gustavus 
Vasa, who in 1523 was empowered by the people to assume 
the title of king, she achieved her desire. Gustavus Vasa 
became the founder of a long and important line of sovereigns. 
Denmark and Norway, however, remained united, under a 
Danish king, down to the time of Napoleon. The political 
confusion that was occasioned in Scandinavia by the struggle 
of Sweden for independence favored the religious innova- 
tions. Within twenty years after Luther's proclamation 
against Indulgences (15 17), Catholicism had been formally 
done away with, and Lutheranism been accepted as the sole 
faith of all the Scandinavian countries. The north produced 
no great reformer of its own, and therefore accepted the 
creed of its nearest neighbor, Germany. 

Turning next to Switzerland, we take note that this 
country had, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, very 
nearly acquired its present extent. It was in the Middle 
Ages a part of the Holy Roman Empire, that is, of Germany. 
But certain valleys of the Alpine uplands began at an early 
date to go their own way, to be joined presently by neigh- 
boring valleys. The interesting story of these beginnings 
takes us to the picturesque lake of Lucerne, lying beneath 
the shadow of the three small Alpine cantons of Schwyz, 
Uri, and Unterwalden. In 1291 these three districts formed 
an alliance for the purpose of assisting each other against 
the aggressions of the neighboring counts of Hapsburg. 
Again and again the counts led their brilliant host of knights 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 87 

against the hardy mountaineers, who fought on foot, armed 
with such imperfect weapons as came to hand. The feudal 
onslaught was in vain. The scales of fate steadily inclined 
in favor of the lowly sons of the soil, and their victory was 
presently crystallized by the ever-active poetic instinct of 
man into patriotic legends around the names of William Tell 
and Arnold Winkelried. As late as the time of Emperor 
Maximilian the counts of Hapsburg, who had waxed great 
and acquired the imperial dignity, retained the hope of bring- 
ing the obstinate peasants once more under their authority. 
In the year 1499 Maximilian levied war upon them, but when 
he, too, like his forefathers, was defeated, the attempt at 
subjugation was given up, and the Swiss cantons became 
virtually independent, not only of the House of Hapsburg, 
but also of the Empire. 

Meanwhile the original three cantons had been strength- Switzerland a 
ened by gradual accession from their neighbors. By the at i n. 
time the Hapsburgs made their last effort, in 1499, seven 
more cantons had been added to the original league, together 
with a number of outlying districts, bound to the Confedera- 
tion by more or less strict articles of adhesion. Nevertheless, 
the union left much to be desired. Every canton remained 
practically an independent little republic, and the central 
government, which consisted of a Diet composed of dele- 
gates from the cantons, had hardly any other power than 
the right to concert common measures of defence. From 
the time of its origin to well into the nineteenth century 
Switzerland furnished an excellent example of a loose con- 
federation of sovereign or almost sovereign states. 

This weak union was exposed to a severe test when the Zwingli, 
Reformation carried its conflicts and confusion into the reformer. 
Confederation. The champion of the movement in Switz- 
erland was Ulrich Zwingli. Throughout his life he main- 
tained with conviction and much show of reason that his 



The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 



Zwingli, 
humanist and 
democrat. 



Differences in 
the ideals of 
Luther and 
Zwingli. 



ideas were his own, and had not been borrowed from Luther; 
still it may be doubted if he would ever have made much stir 
if it had not been for the larger movement set afoot by the 
Saxon reformer. 

Zwingli was only a few weeks younger than Luther, hav- 
ing been born in the village of Wildhaus, near St. Gall, in 
January, 1484. He came of an influential family, received 
a careful schooling, and in due time attended the university, 
where he was strongly impregnated with the current human- 
istic thought. In 1506 he was ordained a priest, and was 
called to his first charge at Glarus. As the outer circum- 
stances of his life were much happier than Luther's, so he 
seems to have grown up without any of those inner crises 
that make Luther's youth such a troubled season of storm 
and stress. In his capacity of free-born Swiss he became 
acquainted early with the workings of a democratic city 
republic and imbued with that virile patriotism which is 
the product of political responsibility. These are the in- 
fluences which determined Zwingli 's life and shaped his 
labors. They explain why he approached the criticism of 
the Church by the path of the Erasmian humanism, and 
also make clear why, when he had been pushed beyond the 
position of Erasmus to a complete separation from Rome, 
he advocated an ecclesiastical reorganization which hence- 
forth should subject religion to the democratic control of 
the civil authorities. Luther, too, had placed his Church 
under the guidance of the civil powers, but since the civil 
powers in Germany were, speaking generally, the princes, 
the Lutheran Church acquired a distinctly autocratic char- 
acter. Zwingli, the Swiss republican, not only felt impelled 
to carry the idea of democracy into the Church, but also re- 
tained a firm belief in the political wisdom of the masses, 
long after the experience of the peasants' war had cured 
Luther of his popular leanings. In consequence, the Swiss 



bnccesd. 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 89 

reformer had none of Luther's aversion to interweaving re- 
ligion and politics; on the contrary, he frankly courted polit- 
ical authority all his life, on the ground that only by this 
means could his religious programme be definitely estab- 
lished in society. 

Zwingli's real career did not begin until 15 18; in that year Zwing^ 
he was called to a pastoral charge in Zurich, the most vigorous 
community in Switzerland. Starting like Luther with a 
protest against Indulgences, he was carried from point to 
point, until there was no room for him within the ancient 
Church. The measures which he advocated in powerful 
addresses from the pulpit were enthusiastically received by 
his hearers, until by the end of 1525 his Reformed Church 
was, in effect, established at Zurich. That it differed by 
reason of its democratic organization from the Lutheran 
Church has already been remarked; but it also differed in 
some essential points of doctrine. Of the seven sacraments 
of the mediaeval Church Luther had retained two: baptism Quarrel with 
and the Lord's supper. Concerning the Lord's supper he 
believed in the actual presence of Jesus in the bread and 
wine, in accordance with the literal meaning of the Gospel 
words: this is my Blood, this is my Body. In the eyes of 
Luther the change of substance was a miracle beyond the 
power of explanation, a belief esteemed rank superstition by 
Zwingli, who saw in the rite merely an act whereby the 
communicant recalled to his mind the sacrifice of Christ 
upon the cross. Luther's interpretation originated in his 
mystic attitude toward Christianity, whereas Zwingli's 
view represented the scientific current of thought which 
tries to bring faith into accord with reason. Such differ- 
ences made a union of the Lutheran and Zwinglian move- 
ments impossible. Nevertheless, some Protestants, like the 
Landgrave Philip of Hesse, convinced that disunion in the 
reformed camp would invite attack, urged the rival leaders 



Luther. 



90 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 

to bury their strife. Zwingli was not averse, but the con- 
ference, which at the invitation of the Landgrave Philip took 
place between him and Luther at Marburg in 1529, ended 
in failure, because Luther would not sacrifice an iota of his 
doctrine of the Lord's supper. Thus the Protestant move- 
ment of Switzerland continued upon its independent course. 
osition by But trouble was already beginning to threaten its success. 



cantons^ With the usual passion of the reformer, Zwingli wished to 

carry his propaganda over all Switzerland. He met with 
some success, notably when the city of Bern came over to 
his side (1528), but the so-called Forest cantons, representing 
the original nucleus of the Confederation, refused to abandon 
their ancient faith. The Forest cantons enfolded the region 
of the upper Alps, and were inhabited chiefly by peasants 
and herdsmen. This simple and honest folk, besides being 
imbued with the conservatism natural to a remote farming 
society, nourished a fear that the realization of Zwingli's 
ideas would diminish their influence in the Confederation. 
They had become aware that in the background of Zwingli's 
religious propaganda lurked a plan to subject the cantons to 
the federal Diet by increasing the latter's powers. In this 
body the Forest cantons wielded, by reason of the rule which 
accorded to every canton equal representation, an influence 
out of proportion to their. size and population. Zwingli's 
plan would have subjected them to a majority drawn from 
the progressive and populous districts. A prolonged dispute 
ended with an appeal to arms. The decision fell at the battle 
of Kappel, in October, 1531, where the Forest cantons were 
successful, and Zwingli himself, who had marched out with 
The Peace of the Zurich host, was slain. In the Peace of Kappel, which 
Kappel, 1531. followed the k att i 6) an arrangement was concluded which 
foreshadowed the solution of the religious difficulties of 
Germany, found at Augsburg in 1555. Religion was de- 
clared to be the affair not of the Swiss Diet, but of each 



Counter- Reformation of the Catholic Church 91 



canton, which should determine for itself whether Protestant- 
ism or Catholicism should reign within its jurisdiction. No 
other solution was perhaps possible in a loose union like 
Switzerland, where the several partners held that they had 
never surrendered their sovereignty. In consequence, the 
religious map of Switzerland acquired that checkered appear- 
ance which marks it to this day. 

The cantons composing Switzerland at this time were in 
the main of German speech. At the western portal of the 
Confederation lay a city of French speech, which, becoming 
Protestant about the same time, declared its independence, 
and entered into relations of amity with the Swiss. This 
city was Geneva, and the man who assured the triumph of Geneva, 
its revolution was the leading figure of the second generation _ 
of reform, John Calvin. Zwingli played, after all, only a 
local Swiss role, but Calvin exercised an influence as wide or 
even wider than that of Luther. 

Geneva at the beginning of the sixteenth century occupied Geneva be- 
a curious political position, which may be defined as a half- pen d e nt of 
way station between mediaeval and modern conditions. The jjj^ op and 
city, like many other mediaeval towns, had acquired a 
limited self-government, but its old feudal lord, the bishop 
of Geneva, still exercised authority over it, though sharing 
some of his minor rights with the most powerful secular 
ruler of the neighborhood, the duke of Savoy. This cal- 
culating noble had long been planning to add the city com- 
manding the sources of the Rhone River to his possessions, 
and had inaugurated his undertaking by getting the bishopric 
well under his control. If the Genevans had not been im- 
bued with the spirit of liberty, they would surely have fallen 
victims to the formidable plot of duke and bishop. But 
subjects of Savoy they would not be, and defended them- 
selves with such vigor that the conspirators were beaten 
off and had to abandon the city. By the year 1536 



92 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 



Geneva 
becomes 
Protestant. 



John Calvin. 



Calvin ban- 
ished from 
France. 



Geneva was a free republic, recognizing no superior under 
heaven. 

Meanwhile the civil revolt had become complicated with 
the religious agitations of the day. The patriotic struggle 
against the bishop had drawn the ire of the Genevans upon 
the Church with which he was identified. As much to spite 
their hated master as from any deep moral enthusiasm, they 
had turned toward Protestantism. Thus the religious rev- 
olution kept pace with the political one, and in the same 
year in which the city became free, its citizens formally 
pledged themselves to live according to the new faith. It 
was only when this much had been done that there began the 
connection with Geneva of that man who gave the revolu- 
tion in that city its final form and made it famous. 

It was a stroke of chance which brought John Calvin to 
Geneva. He was a Frenchman by birth, having been born 
at Noyon, in the province of Picardy, on July 10, 1509. He 
attended the universities of Paris and Orleans, where after 
a brief plunge into theology he undertook seriously the 
study of law. The clearness and precision which are char- 
acteristics of the French mind were doubtless deepened by 
his legal training, while his intellect was both stimulated 
and humanized by early immersion in the regenerating 
stream of classical antiquity. 

But though a man of the sixteenth century might study 
law and love the classics, he could not, especially if he had 
the passion for righteousness which distinguished Calvin, 
avoid being drawn into the religious whirlpool. Calvin 
became allied with the handful of men in France who sup- 
ported the reforming opinions, was persecuted by the in- 
tolerant government of Francis I., and had to seek safety 
in flight. He settled at Basel, a city which Erasmus had 
made illustrious by a long residence, and which had lately 
adopted the Zwinglian faith; and here be published in 1536, 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 93 

being then twenty-seven years of age, his famous theological 
work, "The Institutes o f the Christian Religion." The 
Institutes make the attempt to reconstruct the Christian 
Church in accordance with the words of the earliest followers 
of Jesus, and are, by implication as well as by direct state- 
ment, a criticism of the elaborate superstructure of the 
mediaeval Church. Since no work so thorough had yet 
come from the Protestant camp, the reputation of the young 
author spread rapidly over Europe. Shortly after this trea- 
tise had appeared he stopped, on returning from a secret 
visit to France, for a night's rest at Geneva. 

The Protestant faith had only just been introduced into Calvin is pre- 
Geneva, and its organization left much to be desired. s tay in Geneva. 
Besides, the citizens, having adopted it largely on grounds of I 53 6 - 
expediency, had not felt the uplifting force of a great moral 
experience. Now if Protestantism meant anything at all 
worth while, it was an invitation to a nobler life in the 
consciousness of God's active and incessant grace. Farel, 
the leading preacher of Geneva, was in despair over the 
spiritual deadness of his flock, when, hearing of the presence 
in the town of the famous young scholar, he called upon him 
to solicit his aid in the evangelization of the city. Calvin, 
enamored of the retired life of study, at first refused, but 
Farel plied him with such vigor that he resolved at last to set 
his pleasure after his duty, and exchange his quiet closet for 
the stern world of affairs. 

The work which Calvin now entered on lasted, with the Calvin rates 
exception of a short exile, until his death in 1564. By sheer church!" 1 
force of will and ascendancy of genius he rapidly became 
the commanding figure within the territory of the city, and 
with the consent of its citizens ruled its destinies like a 
dictator. His plan was to realize in Geneva the Christian 
Church outlined in the Institutes, and to link it in such re- 
lations to the state as to make each contribute in the highest 



94 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 



Geneva a 
Christian 
democracy. 



Calvin's 
Church is 
democratic. 



possible degree to the welfare of man. A separation of 
Church and state, as exists for instance in the United States 
of America, did not enter even for a moment into his calcula- 
tions. Such is the power resident in inherited ideas, that 
however far the Protestants withdrew from the old Church, 
they one and all held fast to the essentially mediaeval con- 
ception of the oneness of Church and state. The state as 
governing temporal man, the Church as ministering to his 
spirit, could not disjoin their labors, if there was ever to be 
realized the ideal of a coming reign of perfection. In con- 
sequence, Calvin created at Geneva what may be called a 
Church-state, and by so doing instituted one of the most 
remarkable experiments in history. Let us look at the two 
coordinated features of his system. 

And first as to his state. When Calvin arrived at Geneva, 
he found a democratic community, that is, a city governed 
by elected councils. As he found it, he was content, in 
the main, to leave it. According to him any form of govern- 
ment would do among men, provided only that it was filled 
with the spirit of God. Therefore he merely impressed 
upon the rulers of the city that they were in a very true sense 
ministers of the Lord, intrusted with a work different, but 
quite as important, as that of the preachers of His word. 
During Calvin's life at least the officials elected satisfied, on 
the whole, this requirement, and in consequence the world 
enjoyed the exceptional spectacle of an ecclesiastical and 
civil government, each advancing claims of equality and in- 
dependence, and ruling, nevertheless, harmoniously side by 
side. 

In the matter of the Church, which he had mainly at heart. 
Calvin held that though there was one invisible Church of all 
true believers, practically, this might be split up into many 
separate Churches, according to the varying conditions of 
human society. Every such Church belonged to all its mem- 



sistory. 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 95 

bers, and should be governed by them in the democratic spirit. 
Luther had already denied that the control of the Church be- 
longed exclusively to the clergy; but though he had in the 
beginning of his career advocated the priesthood of every 
Christian man, he had yielded to the exigencies of the politi- 
cal situation in Germany, and suffered the princes to assume 
control. Calvin had no insuperable objection to this system, 
but, like Zwingli, he lived in a democratic community, and 
feeling, like him, a preference for democracy, he put the 
Church directly into the hands of the people. A democratic 
or popular character marks every Church established under 
his influence. But the feature of Calvin's Genevan estab- 
lishment which has excited the most comment is doubtless 
the consistory. 

The consistory was a mixed body of clergy and laity ap- The cor 
pointed to watch over the morals of the community. Six 
ministers and twelve elders composed it. It was empow- 
ered to try any man, woman, or child for any departure 
from the accepted standards of purity, and hand the wrong- 
doer over to the civil authorities for punishment. The 
consistory has something of the appearance of a Pro testant 
inquisition, but though it has brought the maledictions of 
modernapostles of liberty upon Calvin's head, it is necessary 
to do justice to his underlying conception. The Church 
and state, as has already been said, he held to exist solely 
for the good of man, for the achievement of Christian per- 
fection. But that good he held — and teachers and preachers 
of conduct in all ages have generally held with him — could 
not be attained if departure from the path of righteousness 
was allowed to go unpunished. Under the sway of the con- 
sistory the city assumed a stern and austere character. Life 
at Geneva in Calvin's day may have been inwardly fervent, 
but many little gayeties which lend charm and color to the 
fleeting hours were rudely banished. Non-attendance at 



90 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 

church rendered one liable to punishment; also dancing, 
card-playing, and the singing of profane songs. Let a man 
blaspheme, a child be disrespectful to its parents, and the 
arm of the consistory came down upon them like a mallet. 
A departure from the Calvinistic tenets constituted heresy, 
and was, of course, a particularly heinous offence. In 1547 
Gruet was executed for the possession of infidel books, and 
in 1553 Servetus was burned for denying the doctrine of 
the Trinity. A system characterized like this by the element 
of discipline may run the risk of, narrowing the human 
sympathies and drawing much of the sweetness out of life, 
but it makes men hard and firm as iron. 

Calvin's This same tendency toward vigor and rigidity rather than 

gentleness and pity was inherent in theTheology with which 
Calvin endowed his Church. It is perhaps his least original 
contribution since his doctrines can generally be traced back 
to one or another of his predecessors. Nevertheless, the 
Calvinistic theology looms large in theological annals, chiefly 
because of the prominence given in polemics to Calvin's 
doctrine of election by grace. This has stirred up so much 
dust that it deserves an explanation. The central feature 
of the great Frenchman's system was the absolute supremacy 
of God's will. Since God was all in all, it was preposterous 
to suppose that man could win salvation either by works, as 
the Roman Church taught, or by faith, as Luther argued. 
God alone could save, and His saving was a pure act of 
mercy. But since God is eternal and omniscient, He must 
know and has willed, even before birth, whether a soul shall 

Predestination, be saved or lost. This doctrine, known popularly as pre- 
destination, has always aroused much angry opposition, 
since it implies the denial of man's power to contribute an 
iota to his own salvation, and would seem to justify him in 
desisting from any effort at goodness. ItVas freely predicted 
that something akin to Oriental fatalism would settle like a 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 97 



cloud upon the followers of Calvin. But for whatever rea- 
son — perhaps merely to show how little philosophical logic 
counts in the conduct of life — the exact opposite has taken 
place. Never has a creed stirred its followers to a more 
strenuous activity than has Calvin's. 

We have seen that there had been raised in Europe, ever The Roman 
since the thirteenth century, loud cries for the reform of the takes a reform. 
Church, but that the Popes had remained deaf to the call. 
At length toward the middle of the sixteenth century, 
frightened by the movement begun by Luther, the Church 
of Rome yielded to the new spirit and instituted a series of 
reformatory measures. 

This Qgjyroier-Reformation in the Roman Church must, Change in the 
in order to be rightly understood, be recognized as a real re- t he Papacy 
ligious revival which, without affecting the doctrines or the andcler gy- 
system of government r brought about a great improvement in 
the life of the clergy. We have noticed that the Popes of the 
Renaissance, concerned chiefly with their aggrandizement 
and pleasures, sealed their ears to the criticism of humanists 
and reformers. But that attitude of indifference could not 
be kept up forever if the Papacy was to live. Many loyal 
churchmen, while looking with horror upon any attack on 
the system of the Church, were yet willing to admit that there 
was much improvement possible in the realm of conduct. 
According to them there was one reform of which Rome had 
need, the reform of its clergy. It is not astonishing when 
we consider the Christian fervor of the Spanish nation, as 
manifested by the long crusades against the Moors, that 
Spain should have furnished the first impulse to a movement 
of reform undertaken in this spirit. As early as the reign 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, and that means before Luther 
struck his famous blow against Indulgences, these sovereigns, 
aided by the devout Cardinal Ximenes, infused new life 
into the Spanish Church. Their idea was that the priests 



98 The Progress of the Reformatioii in Europe 

should be a light to the people by reason of their purity, 
charity, and good learning. It was long before the Italian 
Church took notice of the Spanish movement. The Popes 
and cardinals of the period clung to the pleasant gardens of 
the Renaissance, and found it hard to abandon the life of 
vorldliness and self-indulgence to which they had become 
accustomed. The middle of the century had been passed 
before the Papacy, in the person of Paul IV. (1555-59), 
definitely pledged itself to the new movement. With him 
begins a line of Popes who mark a reversion to the more 
austere ideals of the Middle Ages, maintain a rigorous moral 
code, and devote themselves with eager zeal to ecclesias- 
tical interests. The good example set in the high places 
could not but affect the rank and file. The ignorance, 
drunkenness, and licentiousness which the humanists had 
imputed to the clergy, and especially to the monks, were 
largely replaced in the course of the next generation by 
earnestness, love of study, and purity of life. 

The change of temper in the body of the clergy soon made 
itself felt in an increased religious activity. From parish 
priest to bishop a new fervor animated the old rulers. One 
sign of it was the enrichment, in imitation of the Protestants, 
ofjhe jpublic services by the more frequent use of sermons 
and hortatory addresses. Still more important was the spon- 
taneous creation of great bands of Christian volunteers who 
associated themselves in orders, much like those which have 
attended every revival in the history of the Catholic Church. 
If the Theatines, founded in 1524, and the Capuchins, in 
1525, cannot be compared with the Franciscans and Do- 
minicans, products of the great revival of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, these in their turn pale before the most effective in- 
strument which the spirit of religious propaganda has ever 
forged, the order of the Jesuits. 

The order of the Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, was founded. 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 99 

by Ignatius Loyola. Loyola was a Spanish nobleman whose 
desire, as was usual with his class, was to be a soldier, until 
during a long convalescence from a wound received in the 
field, he chanced to read some lives of Christian saints and 
heroes. His high-strung and exalted nature was so fired by 
this reading that henceforth he knew no higher ambition 
than, in imitation of the martyrs, to dedicate his life to the 
Church. His first efforts were wildly romantic and fruitless. 
He eventually saw that his education was not sufficient, and 
at thirty-three years of age began to study Latin, philos- 
ophy, and theology. While at school in Paris he made the 
acquaintance of some kindred spirits, and with them he 
founded his new society (1534) for the purpose, at first, of 
doing missionary work among the Mohammedans. Cir- 
cumstances prevented the sailing of the enthusiasts for the 
Orient, whereupon they resolved to go to Rome to offer 
their services to the Pope and to secure his sanction for 
their order. In 1540, after considerable hesitation, Pope 
Paul III. confirmed the order and the rules which Loyola 
had composed for it. 

It was not unnatural that Loyola, an old soldier, should The order of 
have modelled his order somewhat after the army. Disci- eJ^^- 
pline, an iron discipline, was its main characteristic. Only 
after a long period of probation was a novice admitted to 
full membership. The trend of the long training was to 
divest the candidate of his personal will and to persuade 
him to merge his individuality in the will of the order. 
This general will was personified by the general, the su- 
preme head, who ruled the members like a regiment of sol- 
diers. In an organization where all private desires and 
ambitions are eradicated, and only one voice of command 
makes itself heard, there is bound to be achieved a perfect 
unity and cohesion. The members serving under the 
general were of four classes: (1) coadjutors temporal or 



100 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 



lay brothers, (2) scholastics who, as teachers in the 
school, were preparing themselves for higher service, (3) 
coadjutors spiritual or priests, who had taken the three 
vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, and (4) the pro- 
fessed who, in addition to the three vows, had taken a 
fourth vow of special obedience to the Pope. Only the 
professed had a voice in the government of the society, and 
the fourth vow imposed upon them reveals that the order 
was conceived as the prop and weapon of the Papacy. Thus 
it will be seen that the order, although it maintained 
affiliations with the laity by admitting merchants, nobles, 
and statesmen, as it were, into its outer court-yard, was 
substantially a congregation of priests. As such its labors 
were determined for it. They were preaching mission 
work and education. 

The society grew prodigiously in numbers and in wealth. 
When Loyola, its first general, died in 1556 it was already 
a factor to be reckoned with, and before the end of the cen- 
tury it possessed many thousand members and supported 
several hundred colleges and houses, scattered everywhere 
over Catholic Europe. Recognizing that youth is the im- 
pressionable age, the maintenance of schools became, one of 
the chief activities of the society, and thanks to the energy 
and zeal of its members their system of instruction reached a 
high degree of excellence. In fact, the Jesuits remained for 
many generations the foremost educators of Europe. But 
important as were the young, the old were not neglected. 
The Jesuits became famous preachers, and as priests ac- 
quired much skill in the treatment of the conscience and in 
resolving the doubts which beset at times even the sturdi- 
est believer. By reason of this gift they were generally in 
demand as confessors, in which capacity they found their 
way into the councils of the mighty of the earth, and 
exercised considerable, though indefinable, political sway 



Counter -Re formation of the Catholic Church ioi 

Sustained by their devotion to the Catholic cause they car- 
ried their propaganda across the seas among the Hindoos, Their prop* 
Japanese, and Chinese of Asia and among the Indians of agan a ' 
America, and were not afraid to penetrate into the Protest- 
ant north in the hope of winning the revolted peoples back 
to Mother Church. Nor were these efforts without fruit. 
If the Roman Church was enabled to raise its head again in 
Germany and England, it was chiefly due to the secret, tire- 
less, and death-defying labors of the Jesuits. In the course 
of the seventeenth century Germany was startled by the news 
of the return of many a Protestant prince to the Church of 
Rome, and when the Scottish Stuarts upon the British throne 
and the electoral family of Saxony, the cradle of the Refor- 
mation, sued to be readmitted to the papal fold, the out- 
look for Protestantism became dark and threatening. 

But the Jesuits were not the only assistants that Rome 
prepared for service in the period of its revival. Other im- 
portant aids were the Inquisition, the Council of Trent, and 
the Index. 

The Inquisition, set up in Rome in 1542, was an ^cclesi- The papal 
astical court of inquiry, intrusted with the ferreting ouFoi 1 uquisl lon * 
heresy and the punishment of those who propagated it. It 
was not a novel idea, for a similar court of Inquisition had 
proved its efficacy in the Middle Ages by destroying the 
Albigensian heretics of southern France; but it had been 
allowed to lapse in the fifteenth century except in Spain, 
where a use was found for it in dealing with the special con- 
ditions created in the peninsula by the presence of a large 
number of Jews and Moors. When the Papacy at last 
awakened to the danger to which it was exposed by the new 
heresies of Luther and Calvin, it naturally bethought itself 
of this ancient weapon. The bull of 1542, which created 
the Inquisition, was soon followed by others which gave 
the institution its definitive organization. A committee of 



102 The Progress of the Reformatioji in Europe 



cardinals, sitting at Rome, investigated all cases of heresy 
denounced to it, declared their sentence of imprisonment, 
confiscation, or death, and were empowered to despatch 
other inquisitors to any point where they seemed to be 
needed. It was the papal ambition to give this committee 
a jurisdiction as wide as that of the Church itself, but 
herein Rome was disappointed. The Spanish Inquisition, 
so terribly efficient long before the Roman Inquisition was 
established, had become closely associated with the royal 
power, and resented any interference with its operation. 
In other countries there were similar difficulties; either the 
bishops, or the king, or some other established power blocked 
the way to the papal pretensions. Heresy these countries 
had punished in the past and would continue to punish, but 
they had done it with the aid of already existing courts, and 
plainly told the Pope that they would have none of his 
•interference. Consequently, the Roman Inquisition never 
exercised any notable activity except in Italy. If we hear of 
systematic persecution elsewhere — and there was an abun- 
dance of it in every Catholic country — we should take note 
that it was accomplished by a local or national Inquisition, 
conducted by national officials, and never, as the Pope 
desired, intrusted to his hands as one of the functions of a 
centralized monarchy. 

If Jesuits and Inquisition chiefly supplied the Church 
with its militant vigor, the Council of Trent precisely defined 
the territory which Catholicism was resolved to hold and 
defend. We have seen, in connection with Indulgences and 
other points of doctrine raised by Luther, that there were 
many practices and beliefs in the mediaeval Church which 
had developed gradually by custom and had never been 
authoritatively defined. In consequence, the Saxon reformer 
ventured to assert that he had as good and as Catholic 
sanction for his doctrine of faith as his opponents for their 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 103 

doctrine of works. Charles V. believed that if Catholics 
and Protestants could only be brought together in a General 
Council, they would succeed in reducing their differences to 
a common formula, and so perpetuate the cherished unity 
of Christendom. The emperor therefore ceaselessly urged 
upon the Pope the duty of calling a Council. The Pope, for 
his part, resisted the imperial demand, mindful that the 
Councils of the past had threatened his absolute control, and 
fearful lest a Council at this juncture should mean surrender 
to the Protestants. In 1542 he had at length given way, 
and called a Council at Trent, but adjourned it again before 
it had held a single session. Whenever the emperor had 
the whip-hand, he obliged or persuaded the Pope to issue 
another call, but the result of the second (1545-47) and third 
meetings (1551-52) was hardly more satisfactory than the 
first, and when the emperor died it was with the full knowl- 
edge that his conciliar remedy for the Protestant schism had 
been a failure. Even if the Popes had not set their wills 
against the plan, it would have been wrecked upon the op- 
position of the Protestants themselves, who had by the middle 
of the century got far past the point of possible agreement. 
After Charles's death, however, when the mediaeval reaction 
had definitely triumphed in the Church and all talk of con- 
cession to the Protestants had been hushed, the Council of 
Trent met for the fourth and last time in the years 1562-63, 
and set the crown upon a notable historical labor. It now 
took the uncompromising stand that the Protestants were 
heretics, that no negotiations could be carried on with them, 
and that the government, worship, and doctrines of the 
mediaeval Church were exactly right as they were. Not 
reconciliation, as Charles had planned, but the solemn re- 
affirmation of the history and traditions of the Church was 
accepted as the purpose for which it had been called. In 
consequence, the Council took upon itself to formulate 



104 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 

authoritatively, and in a manner admitting of no dispute, the 
doctrines of the Catholic Church, and rendered the division 
of Christianity definite and final by laying a formal anathema 
on every Protestant opinion. The official compilation called 
" The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent," in which 
the results of the sessions are registered, constitutes the most 
complete statement of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic 
Church in existence. This precise staking off of Catholic 
ground was to be of the utmost advantage during the coming 
sharp struggle with the forces of Protestantism. Every 
Catholic could now instruct himself as to what he was 
obliged to believe and defend, and knew also what he was 
bound to abominate and shun. 
The Papacy A result of Trent which must have surprised everybody, in 

by the Council view of the unconcealed aversion with which the Popes had 
of Trent. viewed the prospect of a Council, was that the Papacy came 

out of the crisis actually strengthened. Between Councils 
and Popes existed an ancient rivalry over the question of the 
final authority in the Church. The Councils had always 
claimed it, but its exercise had during the last centuries been 
assumed by the Popes. In the Council of Trent there was 
a party of bishops who took their stand on the old platform 
of conciliar supremacy, but the papal party, assisted by the 
new champions of the Pope, the Jesuits, won a complete 
victory.. The Pope came out of the Council so far in the 
lead that the Council has never since proved dangerous to his 
authority. In fact, only one Council has been called since 
that of Trent, the C_cmnc.il _of the Vatican, which met in 1870, 
and its sole business was to~ vote its own abdication by 
solemnly affirming the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope. 
But though papal infallibility was voted at a comparatively 
late time, it was, after all, nothing but the inevitable corollary 
of the absolutism which was tacitly acknowledged as early 
as the Council of Trent. 



Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church 105 

Before the Council adjourned it empowered the Pope to The Index, 
draw up a list of prohibited books, destined to grow famous 
under the name of the Index. The purpose of the Index 
was to stigmatize the heresiarchs and to designate clearly all 
heretical writings, in order to preserve good Catholics from 
their evil influence. The Index thus authorized was pub- 
lished in 1564, and from that time to our own day the Papacy 
has maintained the policy of proscribing books which are, 
or seem to be, subversive of its system. Many of the epoch- 
making works which northern scholarship produced, not 
only in theology but also in the broader fields of science and 
culture, were incorporated in the Index, with the result that 
professing Catholics have been deprived of an incalculable 
intellectual stimulus. The gradual shifting of the mental 
centre of gravity from Italy, where it had rested in the 
Renaissance, to the countries beyond the Alps was due in 
no small degree to the narrow policy which shut its eyes 
upon progress, and timidly declared for security in place of 
independence. 

We have now acquainted ourselves with the movement Catholicism 
known as the Catholic reaction, or, quite as justly, as the 
Catholic Reformation. While we have assured ourselves 
that there was a true reformation, affecting the life and man- 
ners of the clergy, and filling the Church with new sincerity 
and zeal, we also have learned that there was a resolute 
return to, and stiffening of, the mediaeval system of govern- 
ment and theology. The effect of the combined measures 
was to inspire the Church with a truly electrical energy. If 
in the course of the first half of the sixteenth century it 
had been driven from position after position until the very 
sparrows on the house-tops prophesied its early fall, beginning 
approximately with the creation of the Jesuits it rallied its 
scattered and defeated forces, strongly fortified its remaining 
territory, and not only stopped all further advance, but 



becomes 
aggressive. 



106 The Progress of the Reformation in Europe 

soon undertook to reconquer its lost provinces. Protestant- 
ism was now threatened in its turn, and the struggle which 
ensued is the central interest in European history for the rest 
of the century. 



CHAPTER VI 

SPAIN UNDER CHARLES I. (i 5 1 6-56), KNOWN AS EMPEROR 
CHARLES V., AND PHILIP H. (1556-98); HER WORLD 
EMINENCE AND HER DECAY 

References: Johnson, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 
Chapters III.,IV.,V. (rivalry with France), VII. (Philip) ; 
Armstrong, The Emperor Charles V.; M. A. S. Hume, 
Philip II. ; M. A. S. Hume, Spain, 1479-1788; Lea, 
The Moriscoes in Spain; Cambridge Modern His- 
tory, Vol. II., Chapters II., III.; and Vol. III., 
Chapters XV., XVI. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., Chapter 
XXVIIL, Parts 3 and 4 (Charles and Philip). 

From the Spanish national point of view it was a great The reign of 
misfortune that Charles I. (1516-56) was elected to the 1516-56. "' 
Empire in 15 19, and became Emperor Charles V. Hence- 
forth, having duties to perform in Germany, he could no 
longer give his whole time to Spain. In fact, from the time 
of his imperial election he seems gradually to have lost 
sight of any strictly national point of view; he became, above 
all, desirous of playing a grand European role, and that 
naturally brought with it a division of his service and a per- 
petual compromise of the interests of all the nations which 
he represented. Now, the interests of Spain and Germany 
were not necessarily opposed. One great interest, the de- 
feat of the Turks, who were pushing along the Danube into 
Germany, and along the Mediterranean toward Spain, they 
even had in common; but what had Germany to do with the 
emperor's Italian wars or his colonial policy, and what 

107 



io8 



Spain Under Charles I. 



Strength of 
nation sapped 
by growing 
absolutism. 



benefit did Spain derive from his life-long struggle against 
Protestantism? Moreover, although the government of 
Spain needed Charles's personal attention because he was 
the focus of political life, out of a -reign of -iprty years he 
spent in Spain hardly fifteen. It is true, he was the greatest 
political figure of his day, and his fellow-actors upon the 
European stage shrank to pigmies when he made his entrance; 
it is true, he was of tireless activity and with all seriousness 
tried to live up to the demands which the old illusory ideal 
of the emperor, the arbiter of the world, made upon him; 
but it is also true that his grandeur was a personal grandeur, 
and not identified with the nation, as is the case with the 
world's great sovereigns, for instance, Elizabeth of England 
and Henry IV. of France. In a word, Charles used the 
Spanish resources for his own, and not exclusively for Span- 
ish ends. 

But other causes which lay back of the reign and person- 
ality of Charles contributed to the decay of Spain. We 
have seen that the royal power grew greatly under Ferdinand 
and Isabella, and that such growth was on the whole to the 
advantage of the country, because it humbled the nobility 
and facilitated the suppression of the robber-knights. 
Under Charles this centralizing movement began to show 
some of its darker sides. In the early part of his reign, in 
1 52 1, the cities revolted as a protest against the excessive 
taxation to which they were subjected. After a fierce struggle 
their revolt was put down, with the result that the govern- 
ment, henceforth suspicious of the towns, cancelled many 
of their liberties. In the same way the Cortes, the parliament 
of Castile, once the proudest self-governing body of Europe, 
was slighted and abased on every occasion. It still main- 
tained its right of voting the taxes which the government 
demanded, but the act tended more and more to degenerate 
into a mere mechanical registration of the king's wishes, 



Her World Eminence and Her Decay 109 

while all share in the making of the laws was practically 

surrendered. Thus the initiative of the Spanish people in 

local and national affairs was systematically checked, and 

where a policy of this sort holds sway it is safe to assert that 

a people is running the risk of losing its vigor. 

Economic causes also contributed powerfully to the early Foolish 
„ _ . TTT , n , , . , economic- 

decay of Spam. We have seen that the king m order to policy. 

carry on his European wars was obliged to tax the Spanish 
people heavily. Now the mere dram^f-rrfoneywas^n itself 
serious enough, but the Spanish Government made it nearly 
unbearable by coupling with it a fiscal and industrial policy 
which could. not have been worse had it been dictated by 
Spain's worst enemy. The ordinary tax (alcabala) was a 
duty of ten per cent on everything sold, which naturally had 
the effect of totally discouraging commerce, while industrial 
enterprises, like the mlmutacture of cloth, were weighted 
with so many burdens and regulations that they were 
smothered in the cradle. Add to these discouragements a 
certain southern slothfulnsss and a national fondness for 
the display of elegant leisure, and it becomes plafn why 
Spain never developed her natural resources but grew visibly 
poorer from decade to decade. 

And from this analysis of the malady of Spain, let not the Intellects 
Inquisition be omitted. We have seen how, though oper- caused by the 
ating against heretics, it possessed from the first a special Int i ulsltlon - 
significance, because the heretics, being Jews and Moors, 
happened to be a racially foreign body. Its political charac- 
ter was confirmed by the fact that the crown and not the 
Pope controlled the institution, and that its numerous con- 
fiscations flowed into the royal treasury. The Inquisition 
inscribed upon its banner the policy, " one faith one people," 
and though it accomplished its end, it did so at a terrible 
cost. Several thousand Jews and Moors were burned at 
. the stake; many thousands fled or were banished. Apart 



no Spain Under Charles I. 

from the wrong, the mental and material loss was irrepara- 
ble, since Jews and Moors represented the most active 
commercial" and intellectual elements in the peninsula. 
When toward the middle of the century Protestanism 
raised its head here and there, it was crushed with the 
same relentless energy. But if the Inquisition was estate 
lished to repress heretics, it soon extended its watchfulness 
to the whole orthodox society of Spain. Every form of intel- 
lectual activity fell under suspicion, until no man dared think 
a free thought, and the whole country sank into stagnation. 
However, since a yoke is hardly a yoke when it is borne 
as proudly as if it were a chain of honor, it should be re- 
membered that the Spanish people on the whole viewed the 
Inquisition with profound approval. They subscribed to its 
general principle with enthusiasm, and in their fervid catho- 
licity cheered the execution of their enemies. When the fire 
was laid in the public square to the long fagot-piles of the vic- 
tims, the Spaniards crowded to the ceremony as to a bull-fight. 
Philip II. sue- The last thirteen years of his reign Charles spent in Ger- 
kingdom of many. The Protestant successes there broke his spirit, and 
pain- he resigned his crowns in 1556, Spain to his son Philip, Ger- 

many to his brother Ferdinand. Philip II. (1556-98) on 
his accession found himself at the head of states (Spain and 
her colonies, Naples, Milan, and the Netherlands)" hardly 
less extensive than those which Charles had governed, and 
as he did not become emperor he had, from the Spanish 
point of view, the great excellence over Charles that he was 
a national king. As such he enjoyed the favor of his people, 
retaining it even through the disasters which mark the close 
of his reign. 
The character It is curious that this same Philip, whom contemporary 
Spaniards sincerely esteemed, should stand before the rest 
of Europe as the darkest tyrant and most persistent enemy 
of light and progress whom the age produced. To this tra- 



Her World' Eminence and Her Decay in 

ditional Protestant picture there certainly belongs a meas- 
ure of truth; but calm investigation informs us that this 
truth is associated with prejudice and distorted by exagger- 
ation. Philip II. was a severe, formal, and narrow-minded 
man, who was animated by the Catholic fervor traditional 
among his people and his family, and who had acquired from 
the sad experiences of his father Charles a perfect horror of 
religious diversity. Therefore his guiding thought, while 
there was life in him, was to maintain the Catholic faith 
by repression of heresy through the Inquisition, where he 
had the power; by war, where war had become inevitable. 
Every Protestant when he thinks of Philip II. thinks of the 
Inquisition. But the Inquisition, as we have seen, was not 
Philip's invention, nor did he, although he made a revolting 
use of it, handle it more cruelly than his predecessors. In- 
deed, a scrutiny of his life will convince us that the mephis- 
tophelian portrait of him which his enemies popularized 
does not fit the case. He was, in fact, a plodding, reticent 
man, who took his business of kingship very seriously, and 
who, but for the one spark struck from him by his radi- 
cal intolerance, would have been as foreign to any kind of 
enthusiasm as the head of a bank. He passed his days and 
his nights over state affairs. Every document had to go 
through his own hands. Historians who have examined his 
papers declare it incredible that so much matter should have 
been written by one man in one lifetime. In fact, work was 
his failing, for work with him degenerated into the rage for 
minutiae, and ended by enfeebling his grasp of essentials. 
Out of business hours this ogre of the Protestant mythology 
was a tender and devoted husband and father. Even his 
worthless son, Don Carlos, whose mysterious death in prison 
has been the cause of violent and frequent defamation of the 
royal name, he is now admitted to have treated with an ex- 
emplary forbearance. 



112 



Spain Under Charles I. 



Philip as the 
champion of 
Catholicism. 



Philip inaugu- 
rates his reign 
by a war with 
France. 



It is true that Philip became the champion of the Catholic 
reaction, which is to say that he identified himself with the 
greatest movement of his half of the century, and rushed into 
war with the Protestant world of the north. Doubtless, he 
gloried in this r61e on religious grounds; nevertheless, an 
impartial student must agree that his wars were as much 
forced upon him by Protestant aggression and the logical 
progress of events, as determined by his own Catholic 
impulses. As things stood after the Council of Trent, a 
great Protestant- Catholic world- war was inevitable. It came 
by way of the Spanish Netherlands. The Netherlands re- 
volted, and Philip set about putting down the insurrection. 
When he grew aware that the question of religion was in- 
volved, his measures of repression became barbarous; they 
were the traditional Spanish measures, the rack and the 
fagot; worst of all, from the political point of view, they 
proved inadequate in the end. The Netherlands could not 
be pacified by Philip, and gradually won the sympathies 
and secured the aid of the French Huguenots and the German 
and English Protestants. So the war widened. Finding 
himself opposed in the Netherlands by united Protestant- 
ism, the king tried to secure the Catholic sympathies by 
putting himself forward as the champion of the Pope and 
the Church. 

This great struggle between Philip and the Protestant 
powers, wherein lies the main significance of his reign,, 
developed only gradually,, When he ascended the throne, 
it looked as if the chief concern with him, as with his father 
Charles, would be to set a limit to the ambitions of France 
and keep her out of Italy. In the very year of Philip's acces- 
sion (1556), Henry II. of France, in alliance with the Pope, 
began a war which is a close counterpart of the many wars 
waged between Charles and Francis. Now as then the chief 
object of contention was Italy, and now, as on all former 



Her World Eminence and Her Decay 1 1 3 

occasions, fortune decided for the Spaniard. France, after 
suffering two capital defeats in the Netherlands, one at St. 
Quentin (1557) and_Jthe other at Gravelines (1558), once 
more came to terms with her old enemy. By the Peace of 
Cateau-Cambresis (1559) she accepted the Spanish domina- 
tion in Italy. We may assume that France would have 
again returned to the attack as so often before, if civil dis- 
sensions had not broken out which fully engaged her atten- 
tion for a long time to come. Philip himself became presently 
taken up with the question of the revolted Netherlands. 
Thus the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis marks an epoch. It The Peace of 
rings down the curtain on the long political struggle with cambresis 
France, chiefly over Italy — a struggle which had begun ™ ^ s ^ 
more than a half century before with Charles VIII. 's in- 
vasion of 1494 — and it is followed by the era of religious 
wars, which cover the rest of Philip's reign. 

It has already been submitted that these religious wars The revolt of 

, , i • j , r . • the Nether- 

are not to be conceived as an act of wanton aggression on i an d s . 

Philip's part, but rather as the inevitable consequence of the 
animosities and enmities aroused by Protestant thrust and 
Catholic parry. Their origin and centre is to be found in 
the Netherlands. The revolt of these provinces against 
Philip, their sovereign, will be treated in a subsequent 
chapter (Chapter VIII.) . We shall find that it began before 
Philip's reign was ten years old, that it involved a cruel and 
stubborn conflict, and that if it turned finally to the ad- 
vantage of the Protestant Dutch that result was due in 
large measure to the circumstance that the insurgents gained 
the sympathy and aid of the whole reformed world in their 
herpic struggle. For as Protestantism became aware of 
the vigor of the Catholic reaction, it felt threatened by the 
power of Spain, which had undertaken the championship 
of that reaction. Inevitably the Protestant peoples were 
drawn about brave Holland. Philip saw himself gradually 



H4 



Spain Under Charles I. 



The Armada, 



Philip's wars 
with the 
Turks. 



Victory of 

Lepanto, 

i57i. 



engaged in a world- war; to the war with the Dutch rebels 
was added a war with the French Huguenots and a war with 
the England of Elizabeth. Furiously Philip turned at length 
upon his leading Protestant enemy, England. 

The height of the struggle between Spain and England 
was the sending of the great fleet, the Armada, against the 
heretic island-kingdom (1588). The Atlantic waters had 
never seen the like; but the expedition failed miserably by 
reason of the superior skill and audacity of the English 
sailors and the disasters caused by wind and water. Philip 
bore his defeat with dignified resignation. He spoke un- 
affectedly of the deep grief it caused him "not to be able to 
render God this great service." But the destruction of the 
Armada settled the fate of the religious war. It determined 
that the Dutch should not be reconquered; it established 
the Protestant world henceforth securely against the Catholic 
reaction; and it prepared a naval successor for degenerate 
Spain in youthful England. 

The Dutch and their Protestant allies were not Philip's 
only enemies. Worse offenders against Catholic Christianity 
than the Dutch, the Mohammedan Turks, engaged his 
attention during his whole reign. The Turks were then and 
continued for some generations to be the terror of the west 
Bit by bit they were conquering the possessions of Venice 
in the Orient; foot by foot they were pushing across Tran- 
sylvania and Hungary toward Germany; with the help oi 
the Mohammedan pirate states of northern Africa, which 
had accepted the suzerainty of the Sultan, they were plunder- 
ing the coasts of Spain and Italy, and were threatening to 
sweep the Christians wholly off the Mediterranean Sea. 
Finally, in their great need, the Pope, Venice, and Spain 
formed an alliance (15 71), and in the same year their united 
fleet won a brilliant victory over the Turks off Lepanto in 
Greece. Rarely has a greater number of ships been brought 



Her World Eminence and Her Decay 115 

into action, the fleet of the crescent as well as that of the 
cross amounting to about two hundred galleys. The com- 
mander-in-chief of the Christians was the young and chival- 
rous Don John of Austria, a half-brother of Philip II. 
Dressed in white velvet and gold he was rowed down the 
lanes of his galleys, crying exhortations to his men: "Christ 
is your leader. This is the battle of the cross." His dash 
and courage, coupled with an unusual display of energy on 
Philip's part in raising supplies, contributed the main share 
to the triumph. Hardly more than thirty Turkish vessels 
escaped the ruin; 30,000 Turks were killed, 12,000 Christian 
rowers freed from slavery. The victory brought neither 
Spain nor Christendom any great territorial benefits, but 
the Mohammedan sea-power was checked, and though still 
threatening for more than a hundred years to come, fell 
from this time into a gradual decline. Lepanto is one of 
the proud moments of the history of Philip and of Spain. 

A triumph, productive at least of more immediate and Philip ao 
material results than Lepanto, was Philip's acquisition of Portugal 
Portugal. Still it cannot be said that this success was due 
to any special skill of his own, and the sequel would show 
that it was hardly a success at all. Portugal was the only 
state of the peninsula of the Pyrenees which Spain had not 
yet absorbed. Frequent marriages between the royal houses 
had, however, prepared a union of the two states. In 1580 
the last native king of Portugal died, and Philip, who had a 
fair claim by reason of descent (see Genealogical Table IV), 
thereupon took possession of the state and of her colonies. 
The Portuguese, proud of their nationality and their achieve- 
ments during the Age of Discoveries, accepted the yoke of 
the greater state unwillingly. The memories of Portuguese 
independence would not perish, and after Spain had entered 
definitely upon her decline, and only forty years after Phil- 
ip's death, Portugal rose and won back her freedom under 



u6 



Spain Under Charles I. 



a new royal house, the House of Braganza (1640). Since 
then Portugal and Spain have never been united. 

We have ill understood the cold, reticent, and obstinate 
mind of Philip if we have not grasped that there was not an 
atom of originality about it. His handling of foreign affairs, 
where we have just followed his course, was inspired by his 
father's policy, although he laid a little more stress, in accord- 
ance with the spirit of his time, upon religious considerations. 
And in domestic affairs, too, he copied his father slavishly, 
with the result that the evils already' noted under Charles 
were rapidly accentuated. The political activity of the peo- 
ple still further declined. The Cortes of Castile, although 
continuing to meet to vote taxes, became as docile as an 
ancient house-dog, while the Cortes and the other free 
institutions of Aragon, which had exhibited a much higher 
degree of vitality than the corresponding institutions of 
Castile, met with a staggering blow in 159 1. In that year 
the Aragonese ventured to defy the authority of the king 
and of the Inquisition, were overrun by a royal army, and 
utterly cowed. The institutions, it is true, Philip, in spite 
of his victory, did not much alter, but institutions, all history 
teaches, are nothing without their informmg spirit. Thus 
absolutism won its last victory and held unquestioned 
control. 

The financial and economic misery which merely showed 
its head under Charles became under Philip permanent 
and frightful. Commerce languished, industry perished, 
and agriculture lay in ruins, especially in the south. In 
the period of the Moorish supremacy the south had by an 
extensive and scientific use of irrigation been converted into 
one of the garden spots of the world, but the intolerance 
of the Spaniards looked askance at this prosperity. When 
Granada was conquered in 1492 the Moors received a 
guarantee of full religious liberty. But the solemn promises 



Her World Eminence and Her Decay Wj 

made were not kept, and frequent disturbances among the 
outraged Moors culminated in a great rising in 1568. When The Moors, 
this was put down in 1570, after frightful mutual massacres, 
Philip resolved to finish with Granada forever and at any 
cost. Wholesale banishment was called in to complete the 
work of the Inquisition, and every person tainted with 
Moorish blood was ordered from the province. Thus was 
the vexatious Moorish problem settled in Granada, but its 
settlement put an end to prosperity for many a year. Under 
the operation of these various conditions Spain became less 
and less able to pay the ruinous taxes demanded by its 
sovereign, who, however much he got, always needed more, 
arbitrarily reduced the rate of interest, and ended by re- 
pudiating his debts. 

In what book of history or of romance is there a more mov- The triple 
ing story than that of Spain in the sixteenth century? Fortune SpaL. y ° 
showered her best upon her, raised for her the loftiest throne 
of Europe, and set the New World under her feet for a 
foot-stool. But it was all for naught. The Inquisition by 
enforcing uniformit sapped the nation or its intellectual 
vigor, and absolutism by destroying self-government para- 
lyzed the national energy. What vital germs these two 
insidious agents spared fell a victim to the adventurous 
and spendthrift policy of Charles and Philip, which induced 
them to interfere in the affairs of all the world. Inquisition, 
absolutism, and imperialism are the ills which engulfed 
Spain in her ruin^-. 

Philip III. (1 598-1 621), who succeeded Philip II., was Permanent 
an utterly incapable man, the tool and puppet of his favorites. Spain. 6 ° 
In 1609 he was forced to bend his pride and conclude with 
the rebel Dutch a twelve years' truce. The truce implied 
recognition of Dutch independence, and was at the same 
time a public acknowledgment of Spain's decline. Under 
Philip IV. (1621-65) the country dropped definitely to the 



II 8 Spain Under Charles I. 

second and third rank among European powers, in conse- 
quence of the disgraceful treaties of Westphalia (1648) and 
of the Pyrenees (1659), which closed the long wars with the 
Netherlands and with France. By 1659 the political, social, 
and material decline of Spain was patent to every observer. 
Outburst of It is something of a mystery why Spain, during her decline 

ture. under the later Philips, should have enjoyed a remarkable 

literary and artistic outburst. It is true that there was 
no broad or general intellectual activity; the Inquisition 
saw to it that no such movement should gain ground. But 
art and literature flourished for a time, possibly signifying 
the last flicker of that national energy which was exhibited 
in such an imposing manner in the Age of Discoveries. At 
any rate, Spain was endowed with a great national litera- 
ture, to which Cervantes (d. 161 6) contributed his inimitable 
"Don Quixote," a satire on chivalry, floated on the most 
tender and uproarious humor that ever tickled poet's brain, 
and which Lope de Vega (d. 1635) and Calderon (d. 1681) 
helped enrich with a national drama, inviting comparison 
with the English drama of the Shakespearian period. At 
the same time Velasquez (d. 1660) and Murillo (d. 1681) 
founded a national school of painting for which the world 
must remain forever grateful. 



CHAPTER VII 

ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS; TRIUMPH OF THE REFOR- 
MATION UNDER ELIZABETH (1558-1603) 

References: Green, Short History of the English People, 
Chapter VI. (beginning p. 303), Chapter VII.; Gar- 
diner, Student's History of England, pp. 361-481; 
Terry, History of England, pp. 512-618; Seebohm, 
The Oxford Reformers; Froude, History of England 
from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth, 12 
vols.; Burton, History of Scotland, 8 vols, (see Vol. IV. 
for Mary Stuart); Traill, Social England (see Vol. 
III. for civilization under the Tudors). 

Source Readings: More, Utopia (Camelot series, 50 cents; 
Cassell's Library, 10 cents); Translations and 
Reprints, University of Pennsylvania, Vol. L, No. 1 
(letters of Henry VIII., Wolsey, Erasmus, More, etc.); 
Prothero, Statutes and Constitutional Documents, 
1559-1625; Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative 
of English Church History; Robinson, Readings, Vol. 
II., Chapter XXVII. (Henry VIII., Edward VI., 
Mary), Chapter XXVIII. (Mary Stuart, Elizabeth). 

Henry VIII. (1509-47). 

During the period of tranquillity imposed upon England England and 
by the firm administration of the first Tudor sovereign, learning. 
Henry VII., the country first began to show in a marked de- 
gree the effects of the revival of learning. The two univer- 
sities, Cambridge and Oxford, but especially Oxford, be- 
came the centres of the new classical and historical studies 
which had been brought to honor again upon the Continent, 

119 



I20 



England Under the Tudors 



and undertook their dissemination through the land. The 
fact that Erasmus of Rotterdam, the acknowledged prince of 
the humanists, spent much time in England between 1498 
and 1506 added new zest to the labors of the English schol- 
ars, with two of whom, John Colet and Sir Thomas More, 
he became linked in enduring bonds of friendship. 

John Colet first rose into prominence as a lecturer at Ox- 
ford, where he attracted a large audience as an expositor of 
the New Testament. Like Luther, he was drawn to the 
Apostle Paul by his simple and holy personality, and like 
Luther, though many years before him, he upheld Paul's 
doctrine of justification by faith. Later, because of his 
power as a preacher, he was called to London to be dean of 
St. Paul's Cathedral, and while at this post he built himself 
a monument which has proved more lasting than brass. 
Convinced that the surest way to effect the improvement of 
society was to begin with the young, he founded with his own 
means St. Paul's school for boys, where Latin and Greek 
taught in a fresh way crowded out the old and barren studies 
of the schoolmen. St. Paul's school was a new departure 
in education, and became the model for many similar foun- 
dations throughout England. 

Sir Thomas More, after attending the university, entered 
public life, and rose under Henry VIII. to be Lord Chan- 
cellor, the highest civil honor in the kingdom. As a human- 
ist his most important deed was the publication of a book 
called Utopia (1515). Utopia was an imaginary realm be- 
yond the sea (the word Utopia is derived from the Greek and 
means nowhere) which, being grounded on justice, reason, 
intelligence, and liberty, nourished a race of men and wom- 
en who lived in peace and happiness. To describe such 
a country was to point out to men the shortcomings of their 
own state and society, and spur them on to higher things. 
The breadth of the book is characteristic of the author, for 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 121 

More's implied criticism does not stop with ecclesiastical 
abuses or theological absurdities, but covers the whole con- 
duct of life. In. Utopia education was general; religious 
toleration was an accepted rule of state; there were wise sani- 
tary provisions in the cities to avoid pestilence; and such per- 
fect equality reigned that there were neither rich nor poor. 
The book was in essence a comprehensive socialistic pro- 
gramme, but in the eyes of contemporaries, at least, con- 
tained matter so unrealizable that the term Utopian came 
to signify an amiable and somewhat idle dreamer. Never- 
theless, many of the features of More's ideal republic have 
been adopted by our civilization in the course of the advanc- 
ing centuries. 

We have already seen that it was such critical activity as /The revival 
this which prepared the Reformation. England followed the^OTerminer 
in the main the same lines of development as Germany, exl^ of revol ution. 
cept that no Luther appeared at the critical moment to turn 
the accumulated discontent against Rome and head a move- 
ment of revolt. Revolt came in due time in England, too, 
but it was carried through by the king in person, as a last 
and desperate remedy in a most unsavory divorce suit. We 
shall examine this incident, but should guard even now 
against giving it a greater importance than it merits. Henry 
VIII. did indeed snap the ties binding England to Rome, 
but he did not make England Protestant. No man and no 
sovereign could effect such a change in the realm of the mind. 
The Protestantism of England was a slow mental evolution, 
which did not become confirmed in the blood till a genera- 
tion later, in the time of Elizabeth; and it was, like its Ger- 
man counterpart, the outgrowth of the humanistic move- 
ment. 

Henry VIII. mounted the throne of England in 1509, on The accession 
the death of his father, Henry VII., famous as the healer of ° 50 a? nry 
the civil woes of England and founder of the " strong mon- 



122 England Under the Tudor s 

archy." He was not yet twenty years old, a youth of attract- 
ive presence, skilled in gentlemanly sports, such as riding and 
tennis, condescending with all people, free-handed and fond 
of pageantry, and altogether the idol of his nation, which 
received him with acclamations of joy. And not least exult- 
ant over his coming to power were the English humanists. 
For Henry had been brought into the circle of the new learn- 
ing by his tutors, and was reputed to be favorably inclined 
toward it. 

The joy of the humanists over the accession of Henry was 
not destined to last long. The king, indeed, distinguished 
the propagandists of the new learning by various honorary 
appointments; but he soon showed that he did not take their 
principles of reform of Church and state seriously, would 
adopt of their programme only what suited his caprice, and 
was clearly determined upon following the bent of his own 
mind. Under the smooth exterior of the king there appeared 
an iron personality, which, as the years rolled on, tossed 
aside more and more all restraints upon its despotic will. 

A few years sufficed to show that Henry was not so much 
concerned with realizing Utopia in England, as with raising 
his own and his country's prestige by playing a role in 
European politics. His father had sat quietly at home, had 
perfected the administration, and amassed a considerable 
treasure. Henry VIII. saw immediately that with France 
and Spain holding each other in check and engaged in 
permanent enmity over Italy, there was a splendid oppor- 
tunity for an ambitious sovereign, who was free to throw his 
weight into the scales for either party. It is true that the 
French-Spanish controversy hardly touched the interests of 
England; still, an English ruler of the sixteenth century could 
not forget that less than a hundred years before a warlike 
predecessor had been crowned king of France, and that from 
the port of Calais on the French coast, the last stronghold 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 123 

on the Continent which floated the English flag, a descent 
could be made at any time upon Paris. That Henry there- 
fore kept a sharp lookout across the channel requires neither 
apology nor explanation. If in the eternal warfare between 
France and Spain England threw in her lot with Spain, 
she might ask in reward the restitution of a part of France. 
This speculation determined Henry's general attitude. But 
though leaning by preference toward Spain, contingencies 
might arise which would make it advantageous for him to 
comport himself for a time as the ally of France. In that 
case he could demand some territorial reward, or, if that 
was too remote a chance, could stipulate for French gold 
in payment for his efforts. 

Such in outline was Henry's foreign policy, modified, Relations of 
however, by one factor — Scotland. Henry VII. had in- Scotland.*" 1 
augurated a policy of reconciliation with Scotland, which he 
hoped would lead in the course of time to a complete union. 
In this expectation he had married his oldest daughter, 
Margaret, to the Scottish king, James IV. But matters did 
not progress as favorably as he had planned. The enmity 
between Scots and English was bred too deep in the bone to 
be easily eradicated, and the Scots, suspicious for centuries 
of their more powerful neighbor, had looked so steadily 
toward France for aid and protection that they could not 
abandon the habit. A war of England with France had 
generally in the past brought Scotland into the field with the 
object of making a diversion in favor of France along the 
northern border, and this traditional alliance, which caught 
England between two fires, was usually maintained during 
Henry's reign. Thus Henry was obliged to wage frequent 
war with Scotland, but only in moments of intense resent- 
ment did he forget what we may name the Tudor policy, 
with reference to the northern kingdom, of reconciliation and 
ultimate union. 



124 England Under the Tudor s 

Henry's wars. After these general remarks we can dispense with follow- 
ing in detail the intricate game which Henry played upon 
the diplomatic chess-board of Europe. He joined the Pope 
and Spain in the Holy League of 15 12, the object of which 
was to drive France from Italy. When Emperor Charles Vo 
in 15 2 1 renewed the war against France, Henry again fought 
shoulder to shoulder with Spain, until the great victory of 
Pavia and the capture of the French king frightened him 
with the spectre of a universal Spanish domination and drove 
him for a time into the arms of France. Late in his reign, 
in 1543, he joined the emperor once more in an attack upon 
Francis L, in which the chief English success was the capture 
of Boulogne. During these wars Scotland was very trouble- 
some and several times invaded England, though with small 
effect, since at Flodden (15 13) and at Solway (1542) her 
armies were crushingly defeated. To sum up we may say 
that Henry won small profit for England from his military 
enterprises, but that he acquired at least a proud personal 
position as a factor in international politics. 

Wolsey. The favorite adviser of Henry in the early period of his 

reign was Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey was a commoner by 
birth, but having joined the clergy rose rapidly by virtue 
of his talents from post to post, until the king's favor won 
for him the archbishopric ofJ!£ork and at the same time 
raised him to the position of Lord Chancellor, the highest 
post in the civil administration of the realm (15 15). His 
civil position he filled honorably on the whole, proving him- 
self an able administrator and exercising a check upon the 
king's martial inclinations, but his immersion in political 
affairs led him to neglect his spiritual functions and filled 
him with a sense of importance which induced him to order 
his life on a scale of munificence altogether out of keeping 
with the English conception of a churchman. Stimulated 
by the criticism of the humanists, Wolsey undertook to con- 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 125 

sider some of the abuses of the Church, but he was not 
yet launched upon his enterprise when Luther's theses 
against Indulgences (15 17) made the Reformation the ques- 
tion of the hour. The development of England's attitude 
toward the greatest contemporary issue is the kernel of 
Henry's reign. 

Henry watched Luther's first attack upon the Papacy and Henry's atti 

,,,,., . ..... . -r r , i tude toward 

Catholic doctrine with instinctive aversion. In tact, such Luther, 
was his resentment that he did not disdain to descend into 
the lists in person against Luther, and in 1521 published a 
vehement pamphlet, wherein he defended the sacraments 
and the authority of the Pope. In return the gratified 
Leo X. conferred upon Henry the title- ^till used by Eng- 
lish sovereigns — of Defender of the Faith. Of such nature 
was the understanding between Pope and king in Henry's 
early days. In another ten years the wind had veered 
and couriers were speeding from Rome not with messages 
of friendship, but with bulls of excommunication. This 
radical change was brought about by the peculiar circum- 
stances of Henry's marriage and his suit for divorce. 

Henry's marriage deserves close consideration. The reader Henry's 
will remember that Henry VII., in pursuance of his peace mama £ F 
policy, had sought to associate himself with Spain. The 
outcome of this political intimacy was a contract of espousal, 
by which Arthur, the prince of Wales, was married to 
Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Shortly 
after the ceremony Arthur died, and as the desire for the 
alliance continued as before, the idea naturally occurred to 
the families concerned to marry Arthur's widow to his 
surviving brother, Henry. However, an obstacle to this 
project was offered by a law of the Church, which forbade 
a man to marry his deceased brother's wife. In this dilemma 
Pope Julius II. when appealed to had recourse to his dis- 
pensing powers, by virtue of which he could make a law non- 



126 



England Under the Tudors 



The dispensa- 
tion. 



Henry desires 
to be divorced. 



Henry desires 
the Pope to 
annul the 
dispensation. 



operative in a particular case. He issued what is called a 
papal dispensation, and on the strength of this the marriage 
took place in 1509. Now it will be readily understood that 
if the Pope, as Luther was affirming every day with increasing 
violence, was an impostor, the exercise of the dispensing 
power was a usurpation, the law remained the law what- 
ever happened, and Henry's marriage was illegal. In ad- 
dition, therefore, to the natural inclination of a despotic 
mind to uphold the cause of authority everywhere and at all 
limes, Henry had a very personal reason for wanting to 
see Luther put down and the sovereignty of the Pope raised 
above reproach and challenge. Thus it happened that 
Henry crossed pens with Luther and became the Defender 
of the Faith. 

But time brings about surprising changes. Only a few 
years after Henry had broken a lance in behalf of the Papacy, 
his attitude toward his marriage altered. He had hitherto 
shown much attachment to his queen, but now he thought 
he had weighty reasons for divorce from her. He had had 
several children by her, but only one child, Mary, had sur- 
vived infancy, and owing to Queen Catharine's age there 
was no hope of further offspring. Even if Mary had not 
been a very sickly child, the king might well feel that he was 
playing a dangerous game to stake the succession upon one 
fragile life. On dynastic grounds, therefore, Henry felt 
troubled and desired to marry again. , But he had also an 
incentive of a more personal nature. The aging Catharine 
had long since lost her attractiveness for him, and he was 
now madly infatuated with her young and charming maid 
of honor, Anne Boleyn. In 1527 he first whispered to his 
confidant, Wolsey, the word divorce. 

Questions of marriage and divorce belonged, as we have 
seen, to the exclusive competence of the Church, and the 
Church absolutely refused to countenance divorce except in 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 127 

certain exceptional circumstances. Henry, however, thought 
he had a very strong and simple case. The dispensation on 
which his marriage rested he now declared in his altered 
frame of mind to be defective. The reigning Pope, who 
was Clement VII., would have only to acknowledge that 
defectiveness and cancel the dispensation, wherewith the 
marriage would be dissolved without further ado. This 
simple course Wolsey, who had meanwhile in addition to his 
other dignities become cardinal and papal legate, undertook 
to urge upon the Pope, but without avail. The Pope, 
partly perhaps from conscientious scruples, certainly because 
he did not dare offend the powerful emperor Charles V. — 
who as head of the Spanish house championed the cause of 
his aunt, the English queen — proceeded with extreme cau- 
tion. He would examine, he would not pronounce. In 
1529 he agreed to send to England a legate, Campeggio, who 
together with Wolsey, already on the ground, was to hold a 
legatine court and ascertain the facts. The king put aside 
his dignity so far as to appear in court like a common suitor, 
but even this humiliating act profited him nothing, for the 
Pope, still proceeding on his original plan of delay, sud- 
denly transferred the case to Rome. Henry was furious at 
this crumbling of his hopes, and in his eagerness to make 
a scapegoat of someone, let fall the weight of his displeasure 
on the head of Wolsey. He stripped him of his civil honors Wolsey's dis 
and exiled him to the country; still unappeased, he had just grace ' IS3 °' 
ordered his arrest, as a measure preparatory to his execution, 
When the great cardinal was stricken ill and died (1530). 
At the last he cast a regretful backward look upon his life, 
using to his attendants words which Shakespeare has em- 
ployed almost literally in his play of Henry VIII. : "Had 
I but served my God with half the zeal I served my 
king, He would not in mine age have left me naked to 
mine enemies." 



128 



England Under the Tudors 



Henry resolves 
to renounce 
the Pope. 



Destruction 
of the bonds 
between 
England and 
Rome. 



What to do now? Almost any other man would have 
given up, but Henry had the kind of will which grows ter- 
rible with opposition. If the Pope could not be got to act 
in what the king considered a just and necessary case, he 
would repudiate the Pope altogether and establish the 
English Church on a purely national basis. Further, he 
would no longer permit the Chiuch to remain an independent 
power in the state, but would reduce it to subjection to the 
civil power, which was, of course, himself. The officers of a 
church cut off from Rome on the one hand, and depend- 
ent on the king upon the other, could be trusted to settle 
the divorce question as the king desired. Upon this plan 
Henry proceeded, but not without frequent pauses, to give 
the Pope time to reflect upon the dangers he was running. 
For his separation from the Papacy was a matter of policy, 
not of conviction, and he would have avoided it at any cost 
short of the sacrifice of the divorce. As the Pope remained 
deaf both to Henry's threats and pleas, the anti-papal en- 
actments succeeded each other without interruption, until 
every cable binding England to Rome had been slipped. 
Let us follow the leading steps in this procedure. 

The assembly of the English clergy is called Convocation. 
In 1 53 1 Convocation was summoned and a decree wrested 
from the clergy, declaring Henry Head of the Church; 
owing, however, to the qualms expressed by many of the 
members the qualifying phrase was added, "as far as the 
law of Christ allows." The next year the king destroyed the 
legislative independence of the clergy by requiring them to 
permit him to revise their statutes and to adopt no new laws 
without his consent. By this means he had put the English 
clergy, so to speak, into his pocket. Now it remained only 
to repeal the laws by which Rome possessed a foothold in 
England. These laws being acts of Parliament could be 
repealed only by Parliament, which body Henry accordingly 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 129 

summoned, and by mingled threats and persuasion bent 
to his will. In 1532 Parliament abolished the payment to 
Rome of First Fruits, which were the first year's revenues of First Fruits 
ecclesiastical benefices and constituted the chief income that 
the Pope drew from England. The next year followed the 
prohibition to appeal a case to any court outside the king- Appeals to 
dom. This gave to the English ecclesiastical courts the hibited. 
right to pronounce, and pronounce finally, upon the king's 
suit. And now longer delay was neither necessary nor pos- 
sible. In February, 1533, Cranmer, a creature of Henry's Cranmer. 
and half a Protestant at heart, was made archbishop of 
Canterbury and primate of England; and four months 
later he pronounced the desired sentence of divorce in his 
own court and sanctioned the coronation of Anne Boleyn AnneBoleyn 
as queen. When the Pope heard of these doings he at last q^Jen? 
recovered his power of unambiguous speech and fulminated 
at Henry a bull of excommunication (July, 1533). But 
Henry was now secure and could meet the Pope's wrath as 
an equal. In 1534 he had Parliament pass a culminating 
act, the Act of Supremacy, by which the last traces of con- The Act of 
nection with Rome were removed, and the king confirmed I ??4. emacy ' 
in the title already voted by the clergy of Supreme Head of 
the English Church, to which there was now attached no 
qualification whatever. 

Thus while the English Church became national by being Henry sup- 
cut off from Rome, it also lost its independence and became {ion? 63 oppi ^ 
subject to the state. Naturally there were many who re- 
gretted these changes. If they thoughtlessly crossed Henry's 
path they were not likely to escape with their lives. His 
marriage with Anne Boleyn, the Act of Supremacy, and all 
that hung thereby could only, be criticised at the risk of death. 
When Sir Thomas More, the humanist, although he had 
been Henry's chancellor, and was the most famous English- 
man alive, refused to take the oath involving acquiescence 



130 



England Under the Tudors 



Henry makes 

Protestant 

concessions. 



The suppres- 
sion of the 
monasteries. 



in these high-handed measures, he was convicted of treason 
and hurried to the block (1535). 

From the first it was an interesting question how far Henry 
would depart from the accepted Catholic system and ap- 
proach the Protestant position. In his own heart and mind 
he was as much a Catholic before as after the separation, 
The sole distinction between Henry then and Henry now 
was that he had taken, as regards England, the Pope's place 
at the head of the Church. But to a certain extent he could 
not fail to be influenced by the Protestant Reformation, for 
the Pope and the Roman Catholic world had solemnly re- 
pudiated him, and he was just then under the influence of 
a counsellor, Thomas Cromwell by name, who entertained 
secret Lutheran sympathies. A number of minor changes 
were therefore carried through. Every church was ordered 
to provide itself with an English Bible for general use, In- 
dulgences were condemned, pilgrimages forbidden, and a 
few miraculous images destroyed. But the only incisive 
innovation was the suppression of the monasteries. 

We have seen on several occasions that monasticism was 
the feature of the Church which chiefly invited the ridicule 
and criticism of the humanists. On this account wherever 
the Reformation was victorious monasticism was the institu- 
tion which was first thrown overboard. Doubtless thert 
was exaggeration in the tales of depravity circulated by such 
virulent enemies of the orders as Hutten and Erasmus; still, 
where there was so much smoke it is safe to assume there 
was some fire. Even under Wolsey, long before the policy 
of separation was entertained, a number of smaller institu- 
tions had been discontinued, and when Cromwell now 
suggested a plan of suppression on a much larger scale 
the king gave his consent, prompted in part, no doubt, by 
the immense material advantage which would accrue" to the 
royal exchequer from the confiscation of the extensive 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 131 

monastic lands. So Cromwell, as a preliminary step, sent 
agents through the land to investigate the monastic houses. 
Their reports were steeped in gross exaggeration, but they 
served the purpose of the minister, for Cromwell presented 
them to Parliament, and influenced that body, outraged by 
the thought of so much wickedness, to adopt the desired 
legislation. In 1536 a bill was passed ordering the sup- 
pression of the lesser houses — the exact provision was of all 
houses of less than £200 revenue — but Henry and Crom- 
well managed to include the richer institutions as well by 
bringing pressure to bear upon the abbots. Before five 
years had rolled by, monasteries in England were a thing of 
the past, and the vast tracts which had fallen home to the 
king had been given to greedy courtiers, or sold to meet the 
royal necessities, or dedicated in a few honorable instances to 
the support of schools and churches. 

The majority of the English people, as far as it is possible The English 
to ascertain their attitude toward the ecclesiastical revolution the royal° ep 
inaugurated by Henry, gave their hearty consent to the P olic y- 
separation from Rome, for the Papacy had for some time 
past been growing in unpopularity; but though they in- 
dorsed the Act of Supremacy, they were, like Henry, thor- 
oughly conservative and Catholic in spirit. Apart from a 
small band of reformers, influenced from the Continent, they 
had no desire for any change in the familiar features of the 
Church. Therefore, the suppression of the monasteries 
caused much discontent, and in the backward northern 
counties, where attachment to tradition was particularly 
strong, led to a dangerous revolt, known as the Pilgrimage 
of Grace (1536). Henry, as might be expected, put down the 
insurrection*wilrr vigor, but did not fail to read the lesson 
which it conveyed. From policy now as well as from con- 
viction he refused to go farther along the path blazed by the 
Lutheran princes of Germany. For the rest of his life he 



132 



England Under the Tudors 



was content to stand fast, force the acknowledgment of his 
supremacy upon his subjects, and keep the service and the 
doctrine of his Church free from the taint of Protestantism. 
From time to time, in order to remove all doubt, he informed 
his subjects what they were authorized to believe, and these 
various pronouncements contained very little to which a 
strict partisan of Rome might not have set his name. Thus 
the confession of faith known as the Six Articles, which he 
had Parliament pass in 1539, upheld such Catholic doctrines 
as the sacrament of the Mass, auricular confession, and the 
celibacy of the clergy, and made diversity of opinion pun- 
ishable with death. Under such a regime there was no peace 
in England either for supporters of the Pope or for adherents 
of Protestantism, and both these groups were vehemently 
persecuted. Cromwell himself, though his fall was coupled 
with other causes, could not be saved by a record of long and 
faithful service, when his secret support of the religious 
radicals came to the knowledge of the king. In 1540 he 
was charged with treason and beheaded. The only safety 
for Englishmen lay in the quiet acceptance of the system 
which their masterful sovereign had imposed, and which 
was substantially Catholic except for the separation from 
the venerable capital of Rome. 

A personal page in Henry's history demands at least pass- 
ing recognition. It presents the story of his marriages. 
His native brute force, which served him well in politics by 
enabling him to impose his will triumphantly on his environ- 
ment, stands out, in the tenderer associations of the family, 
in appalling nakedness. We have already followed the trag- 
edy of Catharine of Aragon to the coronation of Anne Bo- 
leyn. Anne Boleyn gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, and 
soon afterward was executed on the charge of unfaithful- 
ness (1536). The next wife, Jane Seymour, died in child- 
bed, leaving a son, Edward. The fourth wife, a German 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 133 

princess, Anne of Cleves, did not suit Henry at all, and was 
married only to be immediately divorced (1540). As the 
fifth, wife, Catharine Howard, proved untrue, she was be- 
headed (1542), and so room was made for a sixth, Catharine 
Parr, who managed, by dutiful submission, to outlive her 
royal consort. 

Henry died in 1547. Before his death he had been granted The sue- 

cession 

by Parliament the right to regulate the succession by will. 
Accordingly, he devised his crown to his son Edward, with 
the provision that it pass, on the failure of Edward's blood, 
to his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, in the order named. 
As Edward was but a boy nine years old, his father provided 
further, during his son's minority, a council of regency, at 
the head of which he put Edward's maternal uncle, the duke 
of Somerset. 

Edward VI. (1547-53). 

Henry was hardly dead when the council of regency met, The Protector 
and without regard to Henry's wishes practically resigned sue s a Protes"- 
its powers to Somerset, who was authorized to assume the tant policy. 
title of protector. This measure was of decided consequence 
because Somerset was a man of unusual religious tolerance 
and was weirinclihed toward the reforming party. As a 
majority in the council held similar opinions, Somerset had 
no difficulty in inaugurating an era of Protestant legislation, 
especially as he was heartily seconded in his policy by Cran- 
mer, the archbishop of Canterbury. We have herewith 
touched upon the real significance of the rule of the pro- 
tector. The English Church, which Henry had zealously 
protected from theological innovations, was now for the first 
time launched upon Protestant waters. 

If we admit that it was probably impossible to keep the Protestant 
English Church, after its initial breach with the Catholic c e ' 
world, exactly where Henry left it, we shall incline to defend 



134 



England Under the Tudors 



The First 
Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, 
*549- 



The agrarian 
revolution. 



Enclosures. 



Somerset against the charge of precipitate change which is 
frequently made against him. Convinced that a reform 
could not be staved off, he resolved to swing wide the door 
to Protestant influence. English was gradually substituted 
for Latin in the services, priests were allowed to marry, 
the use of holy water was discontinued, and all images were 
removed from the churches. Finally, to lend dignity to the 
conduct of the new services in English, there was published 
in 1549 the First Book of Common Prayer, which vindicates 
the essential conservatism of Somerset's revolution, for Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, who is mainly responsible for it, based it 
largely upon the ancient Catholic breviaries. 

But Somerset's fall was at hand. Not because of dis- 
content caused by these religious innovations, at least not in 
a marked degree, but owing primarily to prolonged economic 
misery, the peasantry of England rose in the summer of 1549 
and threatened civil war. The troubles among the English 
peasants, who were freemen, bore little resemblance to the 
situation which provoked the German peasants, held in gall- 
ing serfdom, to wage the bloody war of 1525. The main 
complaint of the English peasants was directed against what 
were called enclosures. The great English landlords had 
discovered that their returns were larger from sheep-herding 
than agriculture, owing to the steady demand for wool in 
the markets of the Netherlands. They therefore, by letting 
their lands run to pasture and enclosing them, with perhaps 
the addition of the common lands of which the whole village 
had once had the use, threw hundreds of peasants out of 
work and occasioned great misery. This conversion of ag- 
ricultural land to pasture had been going on for decades, and 
many were the laws by which the government had tried to 
put a stop to it. But economic causes, operating like forces 
of nature, are stronger than legislation, and the peasants 
were not relieved. When in 1549 they rose, Somerset, who 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 135 

had a heart that beat for the oppressed, did not hesitate to 
declare his sympathy with them. The rest of the council, 
members to a man of the landlord class, waited until the 
army of the government had scattered the insurgent hosts 
and then proceeded to rid themselves of the traitor in their 
midst. In October Somerset was arrested and deposed, The fall of 
and although he was allowed to live for a while, his oppo- I r^ rse ' 
nents did not feel perfectly secure until his head had been 
severed from his body. He was executed in 1552. 

The leader of the landlord party in the council which had Northumber- 
caused the overthrow of the protector was Warwick, created ^ 
afterward duke of Northumberland. He became Somer- 
set's successor as real governor of the kingdom, without, 
however, assuming the title of protector. He was a clever, 
unscrupulous, ambitious man, who, although he had no par- 
ticular religious convictions, became loud in his profession 
of the Protestant faith when he discovered that a majority of 
his colleagues were in favor of it. He not only adopted Som- 
erset's programme, but multiplied and sharpened its meas- 
ures. Now first occurred violent scenes of iconoclasm in 
England, when the people, incited by the so-called "hot gos- 
pellers," entered the churches and indiscriminately broke 
altars, statuary, and stained-glass windows. Now, too, came Radical Prot- 
persecution of orthodox Catholics, although the government es an ism ' , 
never entirely lost the tolerant quality impressed upon it by 
Somerset. In 1552 there was issued the Second Book of 
Common Prayer, which was again largely the work of 
Cranmer, and differed from the earlier edition in the more Protestant 
Protestant turn given to many of its passages. The Forty- and creed, 
two^ Articles of Religion — a new confession of faith — fol- 
lowed, and therewith the reconstruction of Henry's national 
Church on Protestant lines was completed. An Act of 
Uniformity imposed the reformed Church upon the nation. 

The Protestant revolution of Edward's reign was, as The boy king. 



136 



England Under the Tudors 



we have seen, the work of Somerset and Northumberland. 
Nevertheless, the king, who was, as is frequently the case 
with feeble children, a boy of remarkable precocity, followed 
the religious changes with intense sympathy. When he was 
twelve years old the German reformer Bucer wrote of him: 
"No study enjoys his favor as much as the Bible." His 
favorite diversion was a theological discussion, which he 
would follow with a countenance whence every touch of 
childish grace had been banished by an unnatural austerity. 
Such a boy was only too likely to exhaust in a very few 
years his low measure of vitality. Early in 1553 Northum- 
berland perceived that Edward was dying. By Henry's will 
the succession would now fall to Mary, who, like her Spanish 
mother Catharine, was a devout Catholic. Northumber- 
land and the governing clique, with their Protestant record, 
had everything to fear from her, and in order to secure him- 
self and them he played upon the young king's Protestant 
conscience with such skill that he persuaded him to devise 
his crown away from his sisters Mary and Elizabeth upon 
his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who could trace her lineage 
back to Henry VII. 1 In Northumberland's eyes Lady Jane 
not only had the advantage of being a Protestant, who would 
presumably sympathize with his religious measures, but as 
he had lately married her to one of his own sons, Guilford 
Dudley, he might hope through these young and inexperi- 
enced people to perpetuate his power. It was & base and 
despicable intrigue without a vestige of legality. For Hen 



1 Genealogy of Lady Jane Grey. 

Henry VII. 



Henry VIII. 



Margaret. 



Mary m. duke of Suffolk. 

Frances m. Henry Grey, doke 
of Suffolk. 

Jane Grey. 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 137 



ry's arrangement of the succession by will was in accord- 
ance with an express permission granted by Parliament, 
but Edward, having been accorded no such power, signed 
an utterly worthless document. Northumberland was still 
completing the arrangements for his plot when, on July 6, 
1553, Edward breathed his last. 

Mary (1553-58). 

Edward had hardly expired when Northumberland pro- Public senti- 
claimed Lady Jane Grey. But if he had any hope of f or Mary. 
carrying his candidate, he was soon disillusioned. The 
mass of the people saw through his selfish intrigue and 
rallied around Mary, their lawful sovereign. They hailed 
Mary gladly, because not only their sense of justice, but 
also their religious prejudices designated her as their queen. 
For the majority of the people were still Catholic in senti- 
ment, and the radical Protestantism of Northumberland 
had aroused their animosity. From Mary they expected 
the return of the Mass and other familiar Catholic usages 
from which they were not yet weaned in their hearts. 

The Lady Jane Grey was, in consequence of this un- Downfall of 
hesitating devotion of the English people to their rightful i an dand 
sovereign, crowned only to be deposed again. Northum- Q^J ane 
berland, deserted by his followers, gave himself up and 
was beheaded. His fate was just, but unfortunately Jane 
Grey, who was merely the tool of an ambitious man, paid 
the same penalty. It is true Queen Mary felt compassion 
for her and delayed the execution, but a rebellion of the 
following year exasperated her to such a degree that she 
gave her consent to her young cousin's death. The gentle 
and refined young girl, queen of England for nine agitated 
days, has always excited a pathetic interest. The great 
public stage on which she died was not her choice; a quiet 
country seat, where her bright nature might have shone 



138 



England Under the Tudors 



Mary plans a 
full Catholic 
restoration. 



The Act of 
Supremacy 
abolished. 



Cardinal Pole 
receives the 
nation into the 
Catholic fold, 

1554- . 



among a circle of friends and scholars, would have suited 
her better. Therefore, she called the day on which she gave 
back her crown to the commissioners who arrested her, the 
happiest day of her life. 

It seems likely that if Mary had adopted a moderate 
Catholic policy, taking her stand upon the platform of hei 
father, Henry, her reign would have met the wishes of her 
people. But Mary had nothing about her suggesting com- 
promise. Her Spanish blood called upon her to be faithful, 
above all things, to her faith. She therefore planned noth- 
ing less than a return of England to the Pope's fold — a full 
Catholic restoration. And that was a delusion. For how- 
ever the English people were attached to Catholic practices, 
the Act of Supremacy, proclaiming the English independence 
of Rome, had the full consent of the nation. 

The first acts of Mary's reign left no doubt about her 
policy. The Parliament, obedient to a word from the throne, 
rescinded the religious legislation of Edward and brought 
the Church back to the condition in which it was at Henry's 
death. The Mass was again celebrated in the Latin lan- 
guage, altars were set up, and the married clergy were ex- 
pelled from their livings. So much was acceptable to the 
nation. But doubtful and impolitic measures soon followed. 
Urged on and exhorted by Mary, the Parliament abolished 
all the legislation of Henry's reign pertaining to the Pope ; 
and then voted the return of England to the papal obedience 
To crown her policy of reconciliation, Cardinal Pole arrived 
in England as the legate of the Pope, and in November, 1554; 
in a pompous ceremony, extended absolution to the nation 
and received it back into the papal fold. But even so, Eng- 
land had not yet been carried back to the point where it 
was when Henry began his memorable conflict. There were 
still the alienated monastic lands. Mary in her honest zeal 
would have restored them to their owners, but here the 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elisabeth 139 

Parliament, which was made up largely of landholders who 
had profited by the spoliation of the Church, showed itself 
intractable. 

If the uncompromising Catholic policy of Mary alienated Mary marries 
many sympathizers, she hurt herself still more in popular Spain, 1554. 
estimation when she rejected marriage with one of her own 
countrymen and accepted the proffered hand of her kinsman 
Philip, son and heir of Charles V. Such a union could not 
but inspire vague fears of a foreign domination, and although 
every provision was made in the marriage contract to insure 
the independence of England, the country was, nevertheless, 
unavoidably drawn into the Spanish system. In the summer 
of 1554 the marriage was celebrated, and although Philip 
proved himself afterward to be a cold and bigoted Catholic, 
it must be set down to his credit that he comported himself 
during his occasional visits to England with much discretion. 

Although the religious persecutions which gave the fin- Thepersecu- 
ishing stroke to Mary's dying popularity, and won for her Mary, 
from Protestant writers the terrible title of "Bloody Mary," 
date from about the time of her marriage, they cannot be 
fairly ascribed to her Spanish consort. If Mary persecuted, 
the incentive was chiefly furnished by her own fiery enthus- 
iasm. It was she who stimulated the Parliament to pass 
severe enactments against heresy, and it was she who urged 
the bishops to carry them out. Soon the prisons were filled 
with the Protestant leaders of Edward's time, and soon, too, 
the fires of persecution were lighted over the realm. It is 
the period of the Protestant martyrs. Some two hundred 
and eighty died by the fagot — a number inconsiderable com- 
pared with the slaughter in the Netherlands, but enough to 
rack the nerves of a race whose wavering attitude led them 
to favor a more gentle procedure. The stanchness of 
the victims in death contributed more toward establishing 
Protestantism than could have been done by the doctrinal 



140 



England Under the Tudors 



Her un- 
popularity. 



She is drawn 
into war and 
loses Calais. 



fervor of an army of Calvinistic preachers. It was even as 
Bishop Latimer said to Bishop Ridley at the stake: "Master 
Ridley, play the man; we shall this day, by God's grace, light 
such a candle in England as I trust shall never be put out." 
For the stout part they played, Latimer and Ridley head 
the Protestant martyrology. But~trle persecution struck a 
more prominent, if not a more noble victim than these, in 
the person of the deposed archbishop of Canterbury. This 
was the celebrated Cranmer, who had served under two 
kings. Cranmer, who was a peculiar mixture of strength 
and weakness, flinched when the trial came and denied his 
faith. But in the face of death his courage came back to 
him. He thrust his right hand into the flame, and steady- 
ing it there said, resolutely: "This is the hand that wrote 
the recantation; therefore, it first shall suffer punishment." 

If Edward's violent Protestantism made his reign detested, 
Mary's violent Catholicism produced the same result. The 
hatred of her subjects soon pursued her even into her 
palace. She was a quiet, tender woman, whose intolerance 
was more the crime of the age than her own, and the har- 
vest of aversion which was springing up about her was more 
than she could bear. Besides, her marriage was unfortu- 
nate. She loved Philip, but Philip cared little for her, and 
did not much trouble to hide his indifference to the sickly 
and ill-favored woman, twelve years older than himself. To 
crown her misfortunes, she allowed her Spanish husband 
to draw her into a war with France, in which Philip won all 
the honor, and Mary suffered all the disgrace by the loss of 
the last point which remained to England from her former 
possessions in France, Calais (1558). Doubtless the loss 
of Calais was for England a benefit in disguise; she was 
thereby cut off from the Continent and directed to her 
true sphere, the sea. But to the Englishmen of that day 
the capture seemed an insufferable dishonor. No one felt 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 141 

it more keenly than Mary. "When I die," she is reported 
+ <o have said shortly before her death (November, 1558), 
'Calais will be found written on my heart." 

Elizabeth (15 58-1 603). 

Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn's daughter and Mary's younger The glorious 
half-sister, succeeded to the throne on Mary's death, and QuJen Eliza- 
inaugurated a reign which proved to be one of the most beth * 
glorious in English annals. Under her, Protestantism was 
firmly established in England, the great Catholic sea-power, 
Spain, was challenged and defeated, and English life flowered 
in the poetry of Shakespeare and his contemporaries more 
exuberantly and more exquisitely than ever before or since. 
To the national greatness to which England suddenly raised 
herself in the sixteenth century, Elizabeth has lent her name. 
She appeared to the English people, and still appears, mir- 
rored in a great time, and their generous loyalty, which 
gave her in her lifetime the title of Good Queen Bess, has 
also encouraged them in the view that she was the fountain 
and the summary of all the virtues which throve in her day. 
Modern historians have scattered this delusion. They have 
separated the woman from her time, and it is a very different 
Elizabeth who appears to the eye now that the curtain of the 
myths which concealed her from view has been withdrawn. 

Elizabeth had few of the graces of womanhood and many Elizabeth ac 
of its weaknesses. Her vanity was so great that, although she a woman * 
was a very plain-featured woman, she succeeded in conceiv- 
ing herself as a beauty of a particularly rare type. She 
could not live without flattery and flirtations, and accepting 
the compliments of the courtiers for true coin, allowed herself 
to be persuaded to dance and sing in her maladroit manner 
before a brilliant court of gentlemen and ladies, who could 
hardly hide their amusement behind their handkerchiefs. 
Her manners were rude, especially at the council board, 



142 



England Under the Tudors 



Elizabeth as a 
statesman. 



Elizabeth's 
religion. 



The Privy 
Council. 



V 



and her ministers were frequently annihilated by language 
which would have done honor to the camp and the fish- 
market. 

If Elizabeth lacked many of the special graces and virtues 
of her sex, she certainly possessed what are generally known 
as masculine talents, for she had an inflexible will and an 
exceptional intelligence. Above all, she loved her people 
and identified herself with them. All her statesmanship and 
all our praise can be expressed in the single sentence that 
she was a national sovereign. 

But one of the qualities by which she rendered England 
a great service her contemporaries would have been quick 
to condemn if they had been more clearly informed about it : 
she was lukewarm in matters of faith. However such want 
of conviction may be regarded in the case of a private indi- 
vidual, in the England of that day, shaken by religious pas- 
sions, the sovereign's indifference was an undisguised bless- 
ing to the commonwealth. By reason of it Elizabeth was 
delivered from the destructive religious radicalism of both 
Edward and Mary, and being relatively disinterested was 
peculiarly fitted to play her royal part of mediator between 
antagonistic faiths. We should remember that the sixteenth 
century was the century not only of the Reformation, but 
also of the Renaissance. Elizabeth had been brought up to 
read Latin and Greek, and was not unacquainted with the 
languages and the literatures of the Continent. It is, there- 
fore, not so very strange that, like Shakespeare, Jonson, and 
the poets of her time generally, she gave more heed to the 
voices coming from Italy than to the messages of Luther 
and of Calvin. 

The chief organ of Elizabeth's government was the Privy 
Council, a sort of cabinet, the advice of which she regularly 
heard before she arrived at a decision. In this body was 
gathered the best political talent which the country boasted- 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 143 

It is no small credit to Elizabeth to have exhibited such 
discernment in the choice of her ministers. Most prominent 
among them was William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who devoted 
a life of exemplary patriotism to the advancement of English 
Protestantism and the English sea-power. 

Though Elizabeth was willing to consult in her affairs the The position 
Privy Council, which was a body of her own choice, she 
was not inclined to grant much political influence to Parlia- 
ment, which was elected by the people. Parliament re- 
mained, therefore, what it had been under the other Tudors, 
an obedient recorder of the royal will. Thus the sovereign- 
ty of England was practically concentrated in Elizabeth's 
hands. 

The first question of Elizabeth's reign was the question Elizabeth 
of the Reformation. Edward had followed a policy of rengbus 
radical Protestantism and had failed; Mary had followed a moderation, 
policy of radical Catholicism and had failed; after these 
two experiments it was plain that extremes would have to 
be abandoned. Elizabeth showed her sound judgment by 
deliberately taking up a moderate policy. When her first The Acts of 
Parliament assembled in 1559 she had it pass again an Act andUriform- 
of Supremacy, asserting the English independence of Rome '^ 
and declaring the sovereign the highest authority in the realm 
in religious as well as in civil matters; and also an Act of 
Uniformity, which imposed upon every minister the forms of 
worship laid down in a new Book of Common Prayer. The 
new book was nothing but the second Pray er-B 00k (1552) 
of Edward's reign, with some few revisions. The plan was 
to make the national Church thus reestablished as broad as 
possible, in order that the moderates of all parties might be 
embraced by it. Such was Elizabeth's moderation that it 
even bred fond hopes in the Pope's breast, but after waiting 
for ten years for her to return to the fold, he lost patience 
an<* issued a bull excommunicating and deposing her (1570). 



144 



England Under the Ttidors 



Her persecu- 
tion political 
rather than 
religious. 



Elizabeth is 
the real found- 
er of the 
Anglican 
Church. 



From that moment Elizabeth was definitely pledged to the 
Protestant cause and was forced into active hostility against 
Catholicism. Stringent measures were passed against the 
adherents of the Pope, but never in blind passion without 
recognition of varying degrees of culpability. Catholics 
who refused to attend service in the new Church were simply 
visited with money fines, while heavier fines, culminating in 
imprisonment, were inflicted for saying or attending Mass. 
Fanatic Catholics, whose enthusiasm led them to go further 
and to engage in political plots, were repressed by special 
treason bills, which authorized the seizure and execution of 
conspirators, but which were sufficiently elastic to strike 
down any inconvenient Catholic zealot. Under these vari- 
ous laws a considerable number of Catholics were put to 
death, and all of them, by the system of fines, were gravely 
molested; but compared with the contemporary persecutions 
in Spain, France, and the Netherlands, Elizabeth's methods 
have an unmistakable imprint of moderation. 

A church on these broad foundations met the wishes of 
the majority of Englishmen. They gave it their adherence 
in increasing numbers, accepted its form and government, 
and gradually forgot the Latin Mass. Elizabeth could, 
therefore, proceeding in her deliberate manner, gradually 
complete its structure by new legislation. The most im- 
portant of the complementary acts is the publication of a 
confession of faith under the name of the Thirty-nine 
Articles of Religion (1563). These, too, like the Book of 
Common Prayer, were based upon the enactments of Ed- 
ward's time, and were steeped in the Protestant spirit. 
The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the. Book of 
Common Prayer, and the Thirty-nine Articles are still in 
our own day the essential features of the Anglican or 
English National Church, which may, therefore, claim 
Elizabeth much more truly than Henry as its founder. 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 145 

Throughout Elizabeth's reign the Roman Catholics de- The Puritans, 
creased in numbers. But as they diminished, there rose 
into prominence another body of religious opponents, Prot- 
estant radicals, who were dissatisfied with what they called 
Elizabeth's half-measures, and clamored for a thorough 
Protestant revolution. These radicals, it soon developed, 
were of two kinds, Puritans and Separatists. The Puritans 
were the more moderate opponents, who, while accepting 
the national Church and attending its services, hoped to 
eliminate from it certain features like the elaborate vest- 
ments of the clergy, which they despised as "Romish" 
trappings. Their demand for what they called a purer 
worship won them as a nickname, in the first instance, the 
party designation of Puritans. The Separatists, on the TheSepara- 
other hand (also called Brownists, after their founder Robert 
Brown), were radicals of the most thorough-going sort. The 
national Church with its bishops, its surplices, its cere- 
monies, was hardly better to them than the Roman Church, 
and they refused to attend it. As their propaganda spread, 
they were sharply persecuted, while the Puritans, who in the 
main yielded obedience and worshipped as demanded by the 
law, were left comparatively undisturbed. 

On turning to the political developments of Elizabeth's Caution the 
reign we are immediately struck by the fact that they are Elizabeth's 
intimately associated with her religious policy. We have P ohc y- 
seen that her plan was to move cautiously, to give as little 
offence as possible. In consequence, she remained for a 
surprisingly long time on reasonably good terms with both 
the Pope and Philip of Spain. But as her Protestant policy 
took a more definite shape, a coolness sprang up which 
the bull of excommunication of 1570 converted into open 
hostility. Turn as Elizabeth would in her shifty manner, 
there was now no way by which she could avoid being 
identified with the Protestant cause. The Catholic reaction 



146 



England Under the Tudors 



She is driven 
into war with 
Spain. 



The affairs 
of Scotland. 



Queen Mary 
sent to France 
when a child. 



on the Continent was growing stronger every day, more ag- 
gressively set on winning back its lost ground, and unless 
the Protestants closed their ranks in their turn, it was only 
too likely that their forces would be broken and routed. 
The great fact in the second half of the sixteenth century is 
the world-war between Catholicism and Protestantism, in 
which Philip of Spain stepped forward as the champion of 
Rome, and Elizabeth, almost against her will, became the 
paladin of the newer faith. 

Every event in Elizabeth's reign contributed to precipi- 
tate the struggle; notably the queen's relations with Scot- 
land and Scotland's sovereign, Mary Stuart. Scotland 
had been England's foe fcr centuries. We have seen that 
Henry VII., with a view to the better understanding and pos- 
sible union of the two countries, had married his daughter 
Margaret to James IV. But war was not thereby averted. 
James IV. and James V. both sympathized with France and 
both died while fighting England, the latter (1542) when his 
successor, Mary, was but a few days old. Mary Stuart's 
descent from Henry VII. and the prospective failure of 
Henry VIII. 's direct descendants opened for the child the 
prospect of the English succession. On the death of Mary 
Tudor (1558), there was, with the exception of Elizabeth, 
no other descendant of Henry VII. alive as prominent as 
she. To the Catholics, moreover, who saw in the daugh- 
ter of Anne Boleyn merely an illegitimate child, she had 
even a better claim than Elizabeth. Out of this relation of 
the two women to the English throne sprang their instinctive 
aversion for each other, and the long and bloody drama of 
their rivalry, ending in Mary's death upon the scaffold. 

When Mary succeeded to the throne of Scotland, she was, 
as has been said, a child in arms. Her mother, another 
Mary, of the French family of Guise, assumed the regency, 
and in order to withdraw her child from possible English 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 147 

influences sent her over to France, where she was soon be- 
trothed to the heir of the throne, the dauphin. 1 Thus in 
the face of the Tudor policy of reconciliation the interests of 
France and Scotland were newly knit to the detriment of 
England. 

Mary of Guise soon met with the same difficulties which The Protestant 
beset every government in her time. Toward the middle scotfand? * m 
of the century the voices of the Reformation began to be 
heard in the land. Conversions grew apace, and presently 
the struggle between the old and the new faiths began with 
customary vehemence. But nowhere was it so brief and 
nowhere was the victory of the new teachings so decisive. 
Scotland was still a backward, feudal land, where the chief 
power rested with a lawless nobility. The clergy, too, had 
considerable wealth and power, but their religious indiffer- 
ence and luxurious living had weaned from them the affec- 
tions of the people. On this account the hold of the Catholic 
Church on Scotland had become so slight that the fiery 
Calvinistic preachers, among whom John Knox (1505-72) 
was the leading spirit, had only to proclaim the new faith 
to have it accepted by the people. When the nobility, 
lured by the bait of the rich Church lands, threw in their 
lot with the preachers, the success of the Reformation in 
Scotland was assured. 

The French gentlewoman who held the regency of Scot- The regent 
land viewed these developments with consternation. She French toput 
had lost her hold on the country and could think of no other dow . n Prote s- 

. tantism. 

way of getting it back than by the aid of French troops. At 
her request France sent soldiers, who had put themselves in 
possession of a number of important places, and were on the 
road to repressing the Protestant movement altogether, at 

1 The heir to the French throne received the title of dauphin in the 
Middle Ages. The title is derived from the province of Dauphiny. A 
similar custom accorded to the oldest son of the English king the title of 
prince of Wales. 



148 



England Under the Tudors 



Establishment 
of the Kirk of 
Scotland, 
1560. 



Calvinism 
dominates the 
government, 
doctrines, and 
service of the 
new Church. 



Mary returns 
to Scotland, 
1561. 



the moment when Elizabeth had given a Protestant turn to 
English affairs by establishing her national Church. The 
wisdom of aiding the Scotch Protestants was so obvious that 
Elizabeth resolved to send men and ships to the north. 
These forces succeeded in bringing the French to terms, 
and by the treaty of Edinburgh (1560) the latter agreed to 
abandon Scotland. As the regent at this juncture fell ill and 
died, and as Queen Mary was still in France, the Protestant 
lords suddenly found themselves masters of the situation. 
In a Parliament composed of the friends of Knox they 
abolished the papal supremacy, forbade the Mass, and laid 
the foundations of a new Church of their own (1560). 

The Church that thus sprang into existence a year after 
Elizabeth's Anglican establishment took form was based, 
like its southern neighbor, on the Protestant principle of 
independence of Rome, but resembled it in very few other 
respects. Knox, its organizing genius, had sat at the feet of 
Calvin at Geneva, and was resolved to model it, as nearly as 
possible, according to Calvin's theory of church organization. 
By Calvin's system each congregation governed itself dem- 
ocratically, that is, was ruled by the pastor in connection 
with elected laymen called presbyters or elders; while the 
Church, being the sum of all the congregations, was sub- 
jected to a general assembly. These features of government, 
together with improvements and modifications suggested by 
the peculiar condition of the country, were imposed upon the 
new institution. Its doctrine and worship were borrowed 
from the same Genevan source, and thus equipped there 
emerged a new Protestant Church, known as the Presbyterian 
Kirk of Scotland. 

Up to this time the absent Queen Mary had not con- 
cerned herself much with the doings of rude and far-away 
Scotland. Her husband, Francis II., had lately (1559) 
become king of France, and ever since the death of Mary 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth I4g 

Tudor (1558) she had, supported by a good part of the 
Catholic world, looked upon herself as queen, too, of Eng- 
land. But the year 1560 disturbed her outlook greatly. 
Her feeble husband, Francis II., died, and Elizabeth made 
herself tolerably secure at home. Scotland alone seemed to 
be left to Mary, and as Scotland needed its sovereign, she 
suddenly (1561) hurried thither. 

When Mary landed in Scotland she was only nineteen Her difficulties, 
years old and no better than a stranger. Add to this fact 
the circumstance that she was confronted by a lawless 
nobility, and, as a Catholic, was an object of suspicion to 
her Protestant subjects, and one has the elements of a 
problem that even a better and wiser person than Mary 
might not have solved. 

But though Mary proved inadequate, she was a woman The character 
of many admirable gifts. Grace of figure and grace of spirit ° ary ' 
were added to a nimble wit and a keen intelligence. The 
chance that tossed her to France, furnished her with a rare 
opportunity for development, for the court of the Valois had 
become the home of all the exquisite influences of the Re- 
naissance, and the people she met there, the very air she 
breathed, tingled with the joy of living. She soon became 
the ruling genius of a bright circle, and the hours revolved 
for her amid dancing, music, and poetry. Her contem- 
poraries never tired of praising her beauty; but better than 
formal beauty, she possessed a subtle charm which ap- 
pealed to the chivalry of men, and raises partisans for 
her even in our day. Thus endowed, she was called to 
be a great queen, on one condition: she must subordinate 
her passions to her duty as a sovereign. But here it was 
that she failed. Her cousin Elizabeth, who did not fail in 
this particular, proved herself thereby, if not the better 
woman, at least the greater queen. Comparing the two 
cousins, who inevitably force a comparison upon us, stand- 



i=;o 



England Under the Tudors 



ing as they do in history flashing challenge at each other, 
we are reminded of the familiar judgment: Elizabeth was 
first statesman and then woman, Mary was first woman and 
then statesman. 

Mary began well enough. She made no difficulties about 
the Presbyterian Kirk and only reserved to herself the right 
of Catholic worship. For four years Scotland enjoyed an 
unusual degree of peace. But in the year 1565 Mary married 
her cousin, Lord Darnley, and by that event she and all 
Scotland were plunged into troubles involving a succession of 
climaxes unique in history. 

Lord Darnley, who was hardly more than a boy, turned 
out to be proud, silly, and dissolute. He was no sooner 
married than he became the tool of the party of nobles op- 
posed to Mary. They represented to him that if he did not 
enjoy full authority with the queen, it was due to one of 
Mary's foreign secretaries, an Italian, David Rizzio. Darn- 
ley, egged on by the nobles, resolved to have revenge. One 
night while Mary was sitting at supper, the conspirators burst 
into the room, fell upon Rizzio, and in spite of the queen's 
effort to save him dragged him from the chamber and slew 
him at the door (1566). Much of what followed is uncertain. 
Certain it is that Mary's love for her husband was hence- 
forth turned to hate. She planned revenge. For the present 
Darnley and his party held the reins in their hands and she 
was forced to resort to dissimulation. By cleverly feigning 
affection, she brought her husband to his knees before her, 
separated him from her enemies, and quickly reacquired 
control. Henceforth she took few pains to hide her loathing 
for the wretched prince. In February, 1567, the house 
where Darnley was staying just outside the walls of Edin- 
burgh was shattered by an explosion of gunpowder, and 
Darnley was found dead the next morning. We know 
beyond a doubt that the murderer was the earl of Bothwell, 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 151 

a dare-devil cavalier, who was in love with the queen, but 
we should also like to know whether or not the queen was 
his accomplice. Extended investigation has not yet supplied 
a definite answer, but by what followed the murder Mary 
has compromised her good name beyond help. Not only 
did she permit Bothwell's trial for the murder of her consort 
to degenerate into a mere farce, but shortly after his acquittal 
she married him,. 

The excuse was afterward put forward by Mary that in The revolt 
marrying Both well she had not consulted her free will, but a & ains ax *' 
had yielded to violence. The apology has little inherent 
probability and was rejected with scorn by her subjects. 
They revolted against her, and although with rare courage 
she rallied again and again from defeat, by the year 1568 
she found herself without further resources. Despairing of 
success, she sought refuge in England. She would have done 
better to have sought it in the sea. She became Elizabeth's 
prisoner, and won her release only, after nineteen years, by 
laying her head upon the block. 

Before we take up Elizabeth's conduct, let us take note jamesVI. 
that tragic as Mary's fate was, her country profited by her Murray 
downfall. Her infant son was crowned king as James VI., regent. 
while her half-brother, Lord Murray, assumed the regency. 
Murray represented the Protestant party, and his rule meant 
religious peace for Scotland on the basis of the complete 
triumph of the Presbyterian Church. 

It is not difficult to account for the harsh policy which Explanation 
Elizabeth adopted toward her royal cousin. In fairness to severity with S 
her we must acknowledge that imperative considerations of regard to 
state hardly left any other course open. Looking out from 
London over Europe she beheld a perplexing situation. She 
saw Philip II. in arms against the Netherlands, resolved, if 
necessary, to drown Protestantism in blood; in France she 
took note of a civil war, in which the Catholic party, in order 



152 England Under the Tudor s 

to achieve its ends, did not balk at such revolting measures 
as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; she was in frequent 
peril of her life through the plots of her own Catholic sub- 
jects, who aimed to be rid of her and raise Mary to the 
throne; and she saw, in general, a threatening concentration 
of the whole Catholic world for a supreme blow against the 
Protestant heresy. 

Under these conditions her conduct could not but be 
regulated primarily with reference to the Catholic reaction 
now plainly mounting to a climax. By the beginning of the 
eighties, Philip, through his great general, Parma, had the 
revolt of the Netherlands reasonably well in hand, while 
through his association with the French Catholics he so domi- 
nated France as to be sure that that kingdom would not strike 
him in the rear. He could, therefore, concentrate his atten- 
tion upon the dangerous and elusive Elizabeth. Luckily, 
at the approach of the great crisis, the temper of Englishmen 
was hardening to steel. In the consciousness of their power 
they even invited the threatening storm. Sir Francis Drake 
and a dozen other freebooters fell upon the Spaniards where 
they found them, plundered them on the Spanish main, and 
slaughtered them in their transatlantic settlements. While 
Philip and Elizabeth were still protesting friendship in 
official notes, their subjects had already engaged in combat 
on their own account. When at last, in 1585, the queen 
did not scruple to give open and armed aid to the revolted 
Netherlands, Philip declared that he was at the end of his 
patience. He prepared against England an unexampled 
armament. 

It was the rumor of Philip's invasion of England, coupled 
with the renewed activity of the English supporters of Mary, 
that cost the unfortunate queen of Scots her life. Probably 
it had little value for her and death was not unwelcome. She 
had grown old and gray behind prison walls ; she knew h?r- 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 153 

self beaten. Elizabeth's ministers succeeded in proving 
that Mary was a party to a conspiracy which a man by the 
name of Babington had directed against the life of the 
sovereign, and persuaded the queen, who hypocritically 
feigned reluctance, to sign her cousin's death-warrant. The 
anxiety of the ministers becomes explicable when we re- 
flect that if Catholic Mary ever succeeded to the English 
throne their lives were not worth a penny. In February, 
1587, Mary was executed at Fotheringay. 

The next year the war between Spain and England came The Armada. 
to a head. Philip having at length got together over one IS 
hundred ships, known under the name of the Armada, 
despatched them toward the English coasts. The plan 
was that the Armada should sail first to the Netherlands 
and by putting itself at the disposal of the duke of Parma, 
who commanded the Spanish troops there, should enable 
that great captain to effect a landing in England. The 
island realm was thoroughly alive to its danger. In the face 
of the foreign invader all religious differences were forgotten 
and replaced by a flaming national enthusiasm, uniting all 
parties. In fact, the Armada may be called the death-blow 
of English Catholicism; for from now on, to be a Catholic 
meant to be a friend of the tyrant Philip, and but few 
Englishmen cared to expose themselves to such an imputa- 
tion. A navy filled with the spirit which is ready to do and 
die was put at Elizabeth's disposal. With such leaders as 
LjDrdLEJoward, Sir Francis Drake r and Sir Martin Frbbisher, 
many of whom had spent a lifetime fighting the Spaniards 
on all known seas, the English were not likely to fail for want 
of bravery or skill. Nor were they likely to fail for want 
of the material means of protection. They mustered even 
more ships than the Spaniards, which, although not so large 
as the galleons of the enemy, by virtue of their speed, the 
size and number of their guns, and the perfect seamanship 



154 



England Under the Tudors 



of their sailors held the Spaniards at their mercy. The 
Armada had hardly appeared, toward the end of July, 1588, 
off the west coast of England before the more rapid English 
vessels darted in upon their rear and flank. The damage 
which was done the Spaniards during a running sea-fight 
in the Channel, lasting eight days, forced them tc lie off Calais 
for repairs. Here a number of fire-ships sent among them 
drove them from their shelter into the waiting English fleet, 
and in the ensuing combat .they were discomfited so com- 
pletely that their admiral gave up the enterprise. Finding 
the Channel blocked behind him, he tried to make for home 
by the coast of Scotland. But he encountered heavy storms, 
even more terrible enemies than the English, the Spanish 
ships were shattered miserably by waves and rocks, and 
only a remnant ever returned to Cadiz to tell the tale of the 
disaster. 

England was safe, and more than England, the cause of 
Protestantism in the Netherlands and the world over. The 
English admirals now transferred the scene of action to the 
Spanish coasts, and soon the disheartened Philip sued for a 
peace, which his triumphant foe would not allow. 

As for Elizabeth, the overthrow of the Spanish Armada 
was the climax of her brilliant reign. Henceforth her people 
identified her with the national triumph and worshipped her 
as the very spirit of England. But her private life slowly 
entered into eclipse. She was old, childless, and lonely. 
Her last sincere attachment, of which the earl of Essex was 
the object, brought her nothing but sorrow. Essex had 
been put at the head of an army destined to subdue Ireland, 
which was just then agitated by the famous rising of O'Neill, 
but as he mismanaged his campaign he had to be dismissed 
in disgrace. Full of resentment, he now engaged in a 
treasonable plot, but was discovered and executed (1601). 
It is hard to believe that a woman who all her life looked upon 



Triumph of the Reformation Under Elizabeth 155 

love and courtship as a pleasant recreation, should have 
really cared for the amiable earl; certain it is, however, that 
she went into a decline soon after his execution, and died, 
disgusted with the world (1603). 

England's wonderful and varied progress during this England 
reign remains to be considered. In fact, the reign was the g e ^ p s e 
starting-point of a new development. For the first time 
Englishmen grew aware that their true realm was the sea. 
Courageous sailors like Drake, Davis, and Frobisher voyaged 
to the remotest lands, and though they established as yet 
no colonies, the idea of a colonial empire in the future was 
fmplanted in the minds of men and a sound beginning was 
made by the creation of commercial relations with various 
parts of the world. Before the death of Elizabeth, England, 
which had theretofore allowed Spain a monopoly of the 
sea, had fairly entered upon the path of oceanic expansion.. 
The spread of the Anglo-Saxon race, one of the most sig- 
nificant events of Modern History, may, therefore, be dated 
from "the spacious times of great Elizabeth." 

With the increase of commerce, there came an' increase Social prog- 
of industry and wealth and a more elevated plane of living, ress ' 
which showed itself in a greater luxury of dress, in a court- 
lier society, and in the freer patronage of the theatre and 
the arts. Altogether England was new-made. The Italian 
Renaissance poured out its cornucopia of gifts upon her, 
and there ensued such a heightening of all the faculties of 
man as makes this period one of the imposing epochs of 
history. The Englishman of Elizabeth's time broke away 
from the narrow mediaeval traditions of thought and life, 
and became, like the Italian of the previous generation, 
entranced by the beauty of the world which spread out be- 
fore him, waiting only to be conquered. It is such a man, 
exuberantly happy in the possession of himself and his 
environment, who produces a great art. 



156 England Under the Tudor s 



The great art by which Englishmen expressed their sense 
of this fresh and delightful contemporary life is the drama. 
Christopher Marlowe (d. 1593), Ben Jonson (d. 1637), and 
especially William Shakespeare (d. 161 6), are its great 
luminaries. But the cognate fields of the mind were not 
left uncultivated. Edmund Spenser (d. 1599) wrote the 
great epic poem of the English tongue, the Faerie Queen, 
and Francis Bacon (d. 1626), the philosopher, by abandon- 
ing the barren mediaeval methods of classification and by 
referring man directly to observation and the evidence of 
his senses, paved the way for a more profitable and scientific 
study of nature. 






CHAPTER VIII 

THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS AND TRIUMPH OF THE 
SEVEN UNITED PROVINCES (1566-1648) 

References: Johnson, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 
Chapter VIII.; Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, 
History of the United Netherlands, John of Barneveld; 
Harrison, William the Silent; Putnam, William the 
Silent; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. III., 
Chapters VI., VII., XIX. 

Source Readings: Old South Leaflets, No. 72 (The Dutch 
Declaration of Independence in 1581). 

The part of Europe which has been designated from The Nether- 
of old as the Netherlands, or Low Countries, is embraced theBurgun- 
approximately by modern Holland and Belgium. In the dian princes, 
Middle- Ages the Netherlands consisted of a number of 
feudal principalities or provinces, constituted as duchies, 
counties, or lordships (for instance, the duchy of Brabant, 
the county of Flanders, the county of Holland), all of which 
were practically independent of all foreign powers and of 
each other, although there was not one to which France or 
Germany did not, by some unforgotten feudal right, have a 
claim. In the later Middle Ages a collateral branch of the 
House of France, starting with the duchy of Burgundy as a 
nucleus, had attempted to consolidate these provinces into 
a state which should be independent of both the western 
and the eastern neighbor, but just as the ambitious project 
seemed about to succeed, the family died out in the male 
branch with Charles the Bold (1477). 

*57 



158 The Revolt of the Netherlands 

i'he Nether- In spite of this calamity the political experiment of the 

the Hapsburgs. Burgundian princes was partially successful. Louis XI. 
of France, on the death of his relative Charles the Bold, did 
indeed reincorporate the duchy of Burgundy with France, 
on the ground that it had fallen to him, its feudal overlord ; 
but the Netherlands proper were left in the hands of Charles 
the Bold's daughter, Mary, and from her passed, through 
her marriage with the Emperor Maximilian, to the House 
of Hapsburg. In due time they became the possession of 
Maximilian's grandson, Charles V. Charles, having been 
born in the Netherlands in the city of Ghent, had a just 
appreciation of the value of this corner of his vast dominions, 
and, therefore, continued the efforts of his ancestors at con- 
solidating its diverse territories. The provinces, seventeen 
in number, enjoyed considerable liberty. Each one prac- 
tically rulejiitself by means of a representative body, called 
the Provincial Estates, while the cities possessed charters 
of which they were intensely proud and which gave them 
the guarantee of an effective self-government. In a word, 
democracy was a power in the Netherlands. Although this 
condition of affairs excited the suspicion of Charles, he did 
not in the main interfere with it, but contented himself with 
Charles follows pursuing a policy of centralization which, while establishing 
centr'ahzation. a healthy union, would put the provinces more under his 
hand. He created a number of executive and administrative 
councils at Brussels, designed to be the federal capital, and 
favored the national parliament, called the States-General, 
which consisted of delegates from the Provincial Estates 
and was endowed with the power of voting supplies to the 
sovereign. Thus, under Charles, the seventeen provinces 
made notable progress toward a better political union. 
Racecondi- However, sooner or later an obstacle to a complete and 

seventeen 6 perfect union was likely to be raised by the fact that the 
provinces. Netherlanders were racially not homogeneous. In some of 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces I5y 

the provinces, chiefly those of the south and west, French 
blood and speech prevailed, while in the north and east 
dwelt a people of Teutonic stock, who in Flanders and 
Brabant used a speech calledJFJemish, and farther to the 
north, in Holland and Zealand, spoke a very similar dialect 
called Dutch; — In the Middle Ages differences of speech and 
blood were no reason for not associating several peoples 
together in a common state, and Charles and his ancestors 
cannot be blamed for the attempt; but the mere fact of the 
growth in modern times of race feeling was sure to make 
their project difficult, if not impossible. 

A good part of the land of the Low Countries is below Physical feat 
the level of the sea, and has been won from that element an^canals! 
only in undaunted, century-long struggles by means of a 
system of dykes, which form the rampart of the land against 
the hungry water. An equally great danger lay in the 
periodical inundations of the great rivers, the Rhine, the 
Meuse, and the Scheldt, which converge upon the sea at this 
point. To carry off their overflow, there was devised and 
gradually completed a system of canals which cover the 
country like a net and distribute the water from the rivers 
over a vast area. The plentiful water-ways of Holland and 
Belgium, although due in the first instance to necessity, have 
proved a pure blessing. They have given the country the 
greenest and the richest meadows of Europe, and besides 
furnish thoroughfares for traffic which are cheap, durable, 
and, winding under avenues of ancient trees, exceedingly 
picturesque. 

The original inhabitants of the Netherlands were farmers, The advance 
herdsmen, and fishermen. Commerce and industry, gain- andJntdU- 06 
ing a foothold gradually, create? cities which, as has been S ence - 
already indicated, wrung liberal charters from their feudal 
lords, acquired a substantial burgher freedom, and aided 
by their situation, favorable to a world-wide intercourse, 



160 The Revolt of the Netherlands 

presently eclipsed the other cities of the north. ^Antwerp, 
Bruges, Ghent, Haarlem, and many other cities shared 
under the Burgundian princes in the extension of trade and 
industry, and raised their country, in point of material pros- 
perity and of intellectual culture, to the first rank in north- 
ern Europe. During the long reign of Charles V. the ac- 
tivity of the inhabitants was spurred to its highest capacity, 
and the country advanced steadily in every department of 
civilization. 
The religious The reign of Charles in the Netherlands, so successful in 

Charles. some respects, in one very important particular laid itself 

open to criticism. The religious agitation which troubled 
Germany was naturally disrespectful of landmarks, and at 
an early point in its history invaded the Low Countries. 
Charles, whose dependence upon the princes of the Diet 
forced him, as we have seen, to a dilatory policy in Ger- 
many, was not the man to hesitate where he had the power 
to act. In the Netherlands the Lutheran heresy was, there- 
fore, met on its appearance by a relentless hostility, which 
waxed more and more fierce as Charles's reign proceeded. 
The Inquisition, with its bloody record of triumphs in 
Spain, not unnaturally appealed to the Spanish monarch as 
the best way of meeting heresy everywhere. Accordingly it 
was established in the Netherlands, special inquisitors being 
appointed for each of the seventeen provinces. The usual 
abominations now followed: confiscations, imprisonments, 
burnings at the stake became common occurrences. The 
edicts of Charles against heresy finally went so far as to 
pronounce the penalty of death against persons discovered 
to have in their possession suspected writings, as well as 
against persons who held secret prayer-meetings, or who 
ventured merely to discuss the Holy Scriptures. The 
Protestants in the Netherlands were long hardly more than a 
handful, but Charles's rigor did not exterminate them. In 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 161 

fact, their numbers swelled constantly. The persecution 
only served to illustrate once more the famous observation 
that there is no seed like martyr's blood. To the original 
Lutherans were soon added Anabaptists and other revolu- 
tionary sects, who found the intelligent and liberal society 
of the Netherlands a fertile soil for the propagation of their 
tenets, and from the middle of the century the faith of Calvin, 
destined to give the Protestantism of Holland its peculiar 
mould, found admission, by way of France, into all the lead- 
ing cities. The Inquisition, therefore, gathered a rich 
harvest. Contemporary guesses placed the figure of its 
victims during Charles's reign at fifty thousand. This is 
doubtless an exaggeration, but it is sufficiently correct to 
establish that monarch's partial guilt in the great tragedy 
which followed. But as Charles was well loved in the 
Netherlands, and his reign was in other respects happy, 
there occurred during his life no important outbreak against 
his system. 

In the year 1554, broken by his recent failure in Germany, The abdicatioi 
Charles proceeded to carry out his long-nursed plan of re- ° s> aresm 
signing his various sovereignties into the hands of his son 
and heir, Philip. He began by investing him with the king- 
dom of Naples. In the year 1555 he followed with the 
Netherlands. He summoned the States- General to Brussels, 
and amid the pomp and circumstance which his great posi- 
tion entailed, the transfer was effected. It is a notable stroke 
of historical irony that on that splendid occasion the aging 
emperor appeared leaning for support on the arm of a young 
noble who, though thus designated as the favorite of the old 
ruler, was destined to prove the most relentless enemy of the 
new. The young man was William of Orange. 

The harsh, cold mind 0/ Philip II. was even less adapt- Increasing 
ed than his father's to solve the religious troubles of the u n d|rpSp. 
Netherlands. Like his father, his one notion of healing 



1 62 



The Revolt of the Netherlands 



The Peace of 
Cateau-Cam- 
bresis, 1559. 



The growing 
discontent. 



heresy was to extirpate it, root and branch. The Inquisi- 
tion was spurred on to greater activity, until the fagot piles 
were heaped in every hamlet. Philip himself remained in 
the Netherlands to watch over the execution of his orders, 
while terror began to steal, like a spectre, into every house- 
hold. The majority of the people, though still Catholic, 
were filled with a profound aversion to the senseless policy 
of the inquisitors, and a growing discontent, boding a storm, 
settled upon all classes. 

But there was other work in jthe world for Philip besides 
persecuting the Flemish and Dutch Protestants. In order 
finally to have his hands free he wished to close, by a decisive 
stroke, his fathers long wars with France. He therefore 
prepared for a vigorous campaign. It will be remembered 
that in 1554 he had married Queen Mary of England, 
thereby securing himself a valuable ally. Having twice 
defeated the French, at St. Quentin (1557) and at Grave- 
lines (1558), and having in consequence disposed them to 
a settlement, he refused to concern himself further about 
allied England, and concluded with France the Peace of 
Cateau-Cambresis (1559). England paid for the assistance 
she had rendered Spain by the loss of Calais; but Philip got 
what he wanted. The Peace of Cateau-Cambresis closed 
for the present the long rivalry of France and Spain, secured 
to Philip his possession of the Netherlands and Italy, and 
was the substantial admission of his supremacy in Europe. 
Now, at last, he resolved to go to Spain. Leaving his half- 
sister, Margaret of Parma, as regent in the Netherlands, he 
sailed away (1559), never to return. 

His departure hurried the threatening crisis. The gov- 
ernment had been intrusted to Margaret, as regent, and to 
a council, composed chiefly of Philip's creatures. It is 
plain that if the master had encountered opposition, the 
same measures applied by his representatives were bound 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 163 

to arouse furious resentment. Moreover, the government, 
far from taking any trouble to attach the people to itself, 
seemed rather to make a business of alienating every class. 
The nobles, whom Charles had wisely given employment in 
the administration and army, found themselves supplanted 
by Philip's favorites, many of them foreigners. Naturally, 
their grievances brought them more closely together, and 
the most powerful, such as Prince William of Orange and 
the Counts Egmont and Horn, became the leaders of the 
opposition. The burghers had even a longer list of com- 
plaints than the nobles. They were excited by the quarter- 
ing on their towns of Spanish troops against the express 
terms of their charters; they complained of the multiplica- 
tion of bishoprics, which they feared would put them under 
the heels of the Church; and, finally, they were insulted by 
the grievance, now a generation old and borne with less and 
less patience, of the Inquisition and its judicial murders. 
Discontent was plainly ripening to revolt. 

The occasion for the rising was furnished by the lesser The protest of 
nobles , who were secretly encouraged, though not openly 1S 66.° eS ' 
joined, by William of Orange. In 1565 they formed a league 
among themselves, the purpose of which was to secure the 
abolition of the Inquisition, operating, as they put it, "to 
the great dishonor of the name of God and to the total ruin 
of the Netherlands." In the same document in which they 
made this complaint they avowed their continued allegiance 
to the king. It was not the dynasty against which they 
protested, but the abuse which the dynasty upheld. On 
April 5, 1566, three hundred of their number proceeded to 
the palace of the regent at Brussels to lay a statement of 
their grievances in her hands. In spite of her rage at the 
impertinent demonstration, she commanded her tongue suf- 
ficiently to promise to present their case to the king. In 
a banquet held by the nobles in the evening they were in- 



164 



The Revolt of the Netherlands 



The iconoclas- 
tic fury of 
1566. 



The coming of 
Alva. 



formed that one of the hated brood of courtiers had slight- 
ingly referred to them as beggars (gueux) . Amid a scene of 
frenzied excitement they adopted the term as their party 
name, and assumed as badges the beggar's wallet, staff, and 
wooden bowL 

The courageous protest of the "beggars" against the 
Inquisition, fallowed by their open defiance of authority, 
thrilled the whole country. The government of the regent 
was set at naught under the impression that the auspi- 
cious moment was at hand for ridding the country of the 
monstrous incubus of the Inquisition. Its prisoners were 
forcibly released, and persecution interdicted, while the 
Protestants openly avowed their faith, and gathering in 
bands and multitudes listened with greedy ears to the 
revolutionary addresses of fanatic pastors. At length the 
excitement culminated in a furious revolt. The Catholic 
churches were invaded, their pictured windows, their saintly 
images were broken, their crosses and altars were shattered 
to fragments. The ruin of art wrought by these iconoclasts 
was incalculable. It was weeks before the fury spent itself, 
and months before the government, rallying the orderly 
elements about it, succeeded in repressing the insurgents. 
Philip had received his warning. Would he understand it? 

It is very possible that the abolition of the Inquisition, 
coupled with the proclamation of religious tolerance which 
public sentiment demanded, would have put an end to all 
trouble. But these ideas were foreign to the rulers of that 
day, and seemed nothing less than deadly sin to a fanatical 
Catholic like Philip. Instead of assisting the regent in 
restoring order and confidence, he planned a fearful ven- 
geance. One of his best generals was the duke of Alva. 
Soldier and bigot, he was the typical Spaniard of the day. 
animated with blind devotion to his king and to his faith. 
This man of iron was commissioned with the punishment 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 165 

of the Netherlands, and in the summer of 1567 arrived at 
Brussels at the head of an excellent corps of 10,000 Span- 
iards. The Netherlands, it must be remembered, though 
they happened to have the same sovereign as Spain, were 
not a Spanish province. Alva's coming was, therefore, an 
invasion, and terror flew before him. Every thinking man 
foresaw a period of violence, and William of Orange, with 
a host of those who felt themselves compromised by the re- 
cent events, crossed the border into safety. 

Alva did not long leave the anxious people in doubt as to Council of 
the meaning of his coming. A council, infamous in history R^gn rf 
as the Council of Blood, was set up for the discovery of all Terror * 
those who had taken part in the late image-breaking and 
were suspected of disloyalty and heresy. It was a re- 
doubled Inquisition, freed from the delays of law and the 
promptings of human pity. Hundreds and probably thous- 
ands died by sword and fire; tens of thousands from 
among the best of the land fled from the country. Among 
the more illustrious victims of the executioner were Egmont 
and Horn, whom neither their Catholic faith nor their 
services to the king could save. Paralyzed by the violence 
of the attack, the country meekly suffered the unheard-of 
persecution. 

In these difficulties the first help came from William of William of 
Orange. William belonged to an ancient German family, theSUent. 
which had its seat in Nassau in western Germany. At an 
early age he had inherited from a cousin the tiny principality 
of Orange on the Rhone, which he never thought it worth 
while even to visit. However, he took his title from this 
French possession. His connection with the Netherlands 
sprung from the fact that he was possessed of large estates 
there, chiefly in Holland and Brabant, and was employed 
by his early patron, the Emperor Charles V., in the service 
of the provinces.* Beginning with a secret, intriguing oppo- 



1 66 The Revolt of the Netherlands 



sition to the tyrannical policy of Philip, he identified himself 
more and more frankly with the cause of liberty, until on 
the coming of Alva he inaugurated a career which led to the 
liberation of his adopted country and has made him one of 
the heroes of humanity. He was but a mediocre general; 
his fame does not even rest upon his statesmanship, though 
in this respect he was the equal of the subtlest diplomats of 
his day. His chief title to distinction is his stout, courageous 
heart. Frequently almost single-handed, and at best with 
only the divided support of his little people, he braved the 
world power of Spain, and through defeat piled on defeat 
held out in his resolution. He became known as William 
the Silent, not without a touch of inconsistency, for he was 
famed for his eloquence and was the most courteous of 
gentlemen; but if the epithet conveys the impression of a 
fortitude unwearied and uncomplaining, no more appro- 
priate title could have been bestowed on him. 
William levies In the spring of 1568 William, having turned all his avail- 
Philip, 1568. able . possessions into money, and having summoned the 
most daring exiles around him, began gathering an army for 
the purpose of invading the Netherlands. His project was 
equivalent to a declaration of war against Philip. As coming 
from himself such an act was at best a piece of sublime folly, 
but if he could rouse the Netherlanders to support him, it 
would acquire the altogether different aspect of the rebellion 
of an outraged people to secure their inalienable rights. To 
fill the provinces with his own spirit of resistance became 
William's supreme object, and gradually, although not 
without disappointments and delays, he succeeded. As 
a result a small people challenged the greatest power of 
Europe, and after a dramatic struggle of eighty years (1568- 
1648) issued from the fight as victor. No war more honor- 
able than this has ever been waged in the history of the 
human race. 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 167 

* 

The first campaign proved the complete superiority of William and 
Spanish generalship and the Spanish soldiery. William's 
army, largely composed of ill-paid mercenaries, was defeated 
and scattered. Alva, in consequence, made light of the 
invasion. It had not been supported, as William had calcu- 
lated, by an internal rising. To all appearances the 
country, crushed under the Spanish heel, had fallen into 
a torpor. But if this was what Alva counted on, he was 
destined before long to a harsh awakening. The Nether- 
lands had indeed failed from fear to respond to William's 
first call, but unfortunate as the campaign of 1568 was, it 
had had its effect; it had excited the people for a moment 
with the hope of deliverance and so stiffened them for resist- 
ance. Alva's own folly did the rest. Every act of his 
strengthened them in their feeling that death was better than 
life under Spanish rule. This appeared when Alva at- 
tempted (1571) to fill his empty treasury by a system of out- 
rageous extortion, the chief feature of which was a tax called 
the Tenth Penny, consisting of the levy of ten per cent upon The Tenth 
every commercial transaction, even upon the purchase of enny * 
daily necessities. To this monstrous proposition the citi- 
zens responded simply by the closing of their shops and the 
total cessation of business. 

While Alva was still embarrassed by the commercial 
deadlock which he had himself created, there came the 
news of the first triumph of the exiles. If Spain held the 
land in her iron grasp, she could not in the same unchal- 
lenged way hold the sea, peculiarly the element of the Dutch. 
Dutch freebooters, proudly calling themselves " beggars of 
the sea" in imitation of the first brotherhood of the ene- 
mies of Spain, had long done great harm to Spanish trade, 
but now, rendered bold by long battle with wind and wave, 

they swept down upon the coast, and secured the first The Dutch 

L L l success at 

stronghold in their fatherland at a point called Brill (April Brill, 1572. 



1 68 



The Revolt of the Netherlands 



Rising of 
Holland and 
Zealand. 

Barbarous 
character of 
the war. 



Recall of Alva. 



The siege of 
Leyden, 1574. 



i, 1572). A score of towns, especially in the northern 
provinces, felt suddenly encouraged to drive the Spaniards 
out, and Alva unexpectedly found his power limited to Brus- 
sels and the south. Thereupon the liberated province Of 
Holland elected William the Silent Stadtholder or governor^ 
and Holland and Zealand together, both situated on the sea, 
became from this time forth the heart of the Dutch resistance. 

Thrown into the fiercest mood by these sudden reverses, 
Alva prepared to win back the lost ground. Pity hence- 
forth was excluded from his thoughts, Mons, Mechlin, 
Haarlem, and many other towns which he recaptured were 
delivered to the unbridled excesses of the Spanish soldiery. 
Women and children were slaughtered in cold blood. The 
war entered upon a new stage, in which oppressors and op- 
pressed thirsted for each other's blood like wild beasts, and 
neither sought nor gave quarter. It was a fight to the last 
ditch and of unexampled fury. 

Alva's incapacity to deal with the situation was soon 
apparent to friend and foe. Before the walls of Alkmaar 
he met, in the year 1573, with a serious check. His six 
years of government (1567-73) by Council of Blood and 
Tenth Penny had ended in unqualified disaster. Tortured 
by gout and tired of staring at the ruin about him, he de- 
manded his recall. 

His successor as Spanish governor-general was Requesens 
(1573-76). Requesens was a sensible, moderate man, who 
might have done something if matters had not gone so far 
under Alva. But although he abolished the Council of 
Blood and the Tenth Penny, and proclaimed an amnesty, 
everybody continued to look upon him with distrust. So he 
had to proceed with the military conquest of the still un- 
subdued province of Holland. The most notable event of his 
administration was the siege of Leyden (1573-74). When 
the city seemed for failure of provisions to be lost, William 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 169 

of Orange, all of whose attempts to succor the city had been 
thwarted, resolved on an extreme measure; he ordered that 
I:he dykes be cut. As the water of the sea rushed over the 
fields, the "beggars" crowded after in their ships, until their 
heroic efforts brought them to the walls of the city. Thus 
Ley den was saved, and its name was celebrated with tears 
and thank-offerings wherever Protestants in Europe met to 
commune. Prince William and the sister cities of Holland, 
wishing to reward the brave inhabitants for their heroism, 
founded a university at Leyden, which rapidly rose to the 
front rank and still stands as a monument of enlightened 
patriotism. 

The death of Requesens, which occurred in 1576, was The death of 
the indirect cause of a further extension of the revolt. As andttielpacifi 
yet it had been confined to the provinces of the north, Q^ lon t of 
which had generally adopted the Protestantism of Calvin, 
and to such occasional cities of the south as inclined toward 
the same faith. Revolt from Spain followed swiftly and 
inevitably upon the heels of Protestantism. The grievances 
of the southern provinces against Spain were certainly as 
great as those of the north, but as the southerners clung to 
the Catholic faith, they felt less passionately exasperated 
against the Spanish rule. For a brief moment, however, 
following the death of Requesens, north and south, Dutch 
and French, Protestant and Catholic — in a word, the United 
Netherlands — bound themselves together in one resistance. 
The occasion was furnished by the general horror inspired 
by the Spanish soldiery, which, left upon the death of Re- 
quesens without leaders and without pay, indulged in a wild 
orgy of theft, murder, and pillage. The "Spanish Fury," as 
the outbreak was called, did especial damage at Antwerp. 
This, the richest trading city of the Atlantic seaboard, was 
looted from garret to cellar and subjected to losses estimated 
at one hundred million dollars in our money. Indignation 



fjo 



The Revolt of the Netherlands 



North and 
south go their 
own way. 



The duke of 
Parma, 1578- 
92. 



The Union of 
Arras, 1579. 



at these outrages swept the country, and in an agreement 
of the year 1576, called the Pacification of Ghent, north and 
south declared that they would not rest until the Spanish 
troops were withdrawn from the land and the old liberties 
restored. 

It was the most auspicious moment of the revolution, but 
it was not destined to bear fruit. The religious distrust be- 
tween Protestants and Catholics, and in less degree the in- 
herent differences between peoples of French and German 
blood, fomented by Don John of Austria (1576-78) and 
the shrewd duke of Parma (1578-92), who succeeded Re- 
quesens as Spanish governors, soon annulled the Pacification 
of Ghent and drove a wedge between the north and south, 
the result of which we still trace to-day in the existence of a 
Protestant Holland and a Catholic Belgium. 

It was especially owing to Alexander Farnese, duke of 
Parma, who was son of the former regent Margaret and 
nephew of Philip, that the southern provinces were saved for 
Spain. Alexander, in addition to being endowed with mili- 
tary genius of a high order, was master of all the ruses and 
subterfuges which passed for diplomacy in his day. The 
historian Motley accounts it as not his least triumph that 
he could outdo that pastmaster in the art of prevarication, 
Elizabeth. He undertook to win the southern provinces to 
his side by adroit flattery of their Catholic prejudices. In 
January, 1579, three of them, Artois, Hainault, and French 
Flanders, signed the Treaty of Arras, which was practically 
a surrender to Spain. With heavy heart William saw the 
prospect of a United Netherlands, heralded by the Pacifica- 
tion of Ghent, vanish, and almost reluctantly prepared for 
a closer union of the provinces, faithful to the pledge of re- 
sistance to the death. In 1579 the provinces of the north, 
finally seven in number, and Protestant without exception — ■ 
Holland, Zealand. Utrecht, Gelderland, Overyssel, Gronin- 




NOTE TO THE STUDENT: 
Locate the seven provinces which united to form the 
Dutch republic. Notice that the Bishopric of Liege, 

governed in practical independence by the bishop, r^ e^ 

drives a wedge between Luxemburg and the rest of ^ 
the Spanish Netherlands. 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 171 

gen, and Friesland — formed, for the purpose of an improved 
defence, the Union of Utrecht . Therewith there was born The Union of 
into the world a~ne"w*state, the Dutch Republic, for which rec ' IS79 ' 
the articles drawn up at Utrecht served as a constitution. 

The new Republic did not entirely renounce the sovereign- The new 
tyof Philip until 1 58 1. That was, however, after the bold act p^ c . 
of Utrecht, a mere formality, and does not affect the state- 
ment that the Dutch nation was born in 1579. The Union 
of Utrecht, like many another constitution uniting a number 
of jealously independent states, had some signal defects. 
It did not create a sufficiently powerful executive, and did 
not give the central legislative body, called the States-Gen- 
eral, free control of taxation. For the present, however, the 
personal ascendancy of William, who was made Stadtholder 
or governor of the most important provinces, made up for 
the inefficient federal arrangements. 

Thus the struggle went on, William, with a foothold in the The ban and 
north, against Parma, with a foothold in the south, while be- og t » p0 " 
tween them lay the rich Flemish provinces of Flanders and 
Brabant, which, flattered and assaulted by both sides, wav- 
ered irresolutely, and might fall either way. However, the 
skill of Parma, backed by the resources of Spain, now began 
to tell. City after city in the neutral zone had already 
yielded to the Spaniard, when there happened a calamity 
which seemed like the verdict of fate against the cause of 
liberty. Philip and Parma had long reasoned that if death 
would only remove William from the scene the insurrection 
would collapse. Finally, since fate seemed reluctant, they 
resolved to come to its assistance, and in 1580 Philip pub- 
lished a ban against his rebellious subject, offering gold and 
a patent of nobility to whoever would remove him from the 
living. William justified himself against Philip's charges in 
a pamphlet called the "Apology," wherein he drew a sting- 
ing portrait of the patron of assassins. Nevertheless, the 



172 



The Revolt of the Netherlands 



The murder of 
William, 1584. 



The Dutch 
Republic ap- 
peals for help 
to France and 
England. 



ban was William's death-warrant. Many abortive attempts 
had already been made upon his life, when Balthasar Ge- 
rard, a Frenchman from the Franche Comte, and one of 
those unflinching fanatics in which the age abounded, pierced 
his breast with a bullet. The murder occurred on July io> 
1584, on the stairway of the prince's palace at Delft. The 
victim's last thoughts turned toward the struggle in which 
his country was engaged. "Lord have pity on my soul," 
he said, "and on this poor people." Gerard was executed 
amid atrocities against which every act of William's life was 
a protest, while Philip exulted in the deed and rewarded the 
heirs of the murderer according to his promise. 

William's death could not have come at a more inauspi- 
cious time, for Parma's fortunes just then were mounting to 
their zenith. In 1585 the great city of Antwerp fell into his 
hands after a long and memorable siege, and now only Hol- 
land and Zealand remained to be conquered. What were 
the weary Dutch to do? Their dead leader had held that 
their independence could only be conquered with the help of 
foreign powers, and had long directed passionate appeals 
for assistance to France and England. But these states, 
fearful of the power of Philip, had hesitated. Although 
Elizabeth occasionally sent secret encouragement in the form 
of money, she would not commit herself openly. France, 
too, vacillated, but, at one time, just before William's death, 
went the length of sending the duke of Anjou, brother of the 
king, to the aid of the insurgents. Anjou was offered the 
crown of the Netherlands on the understanding that he 
would rid the country of the Spaniards, but he proved a 
broken reed, intrigued, quarrelled with everybody, and 
left the country in disgrace in the very year of William's 
tragic end. There was now no chance of help except from 
Elizabeth, and the Dutch, at the end of their tether, made 
her a pressing tender of the young Republic. Although 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 173 

the prospect was inviting, moved by her customary caution 

she declined the dangerous honor. Nevertheless, she could 

no longer with due regard to her own safety refuse to grant 

substantial help. Spain and England had already begun to 

clash upon the sea, and the sentiment of the English people 

had declared vehemently for the hard-pressed Protestants 

of the Netherlands. For years Sir Francis Drake and 

others had been engaged in piratical raids, which they 

called singeing the beard of the king of Spain. Philip was 

nursing a just grievance in silence, but if ever he recovered 

the Low Countries, it was certain to go hard with England. 

Ungenerous as Elizabeth was where others were concerned, Elizabeth 

she had a sharp eye for her own interests, and therefore in Dutch under 

December, 1585, signed a treaty with the Dutch, whereby her protection 

she promised to send 6,000 soldiers to their aid. 

When the Englishmen came, under the command of the 
earl of Leicester, the queen's favorite, they did perhaps 
more harm than good, for Leicester shamefully betrayed 
the people he had come to serve. His entrance upon the 
war none the less marks an epoch, for by this step England 
definitely took sides in the struggle, and Philip was made 
to see that the conquest of the island-kingdom was an un- 
avoidable preliminary to the reduction of his revolted prov- 
inces. Therefore he began to collect all his resources for Philip's attack 
an attack upon the English. In the year 1588 his Invincible against Eng- 
Armada spread sail for England, only to be ruined by kndand 
Elizabeth's valiant fleet and scattered by the tempests. 
Almost at the same time the Protestant Henry of Navarre 
succeeded to the French throne (1589), and Philip, alarmed 
at this new peril, resolved to move heaven and earth to save 
the neighbor kingdom for Catholicism. Thus fate, or 
chance, or a too unbridled ambition led him to direct his 
power on enterprises which carried him far afield and 
obliged him to relax his hold upon the Netherlands. The 



174 



The Revolt of the Netherlands 



Maurice of 
Nassau. 



The Twelve 
Years' Truce, 
1609. 



Renewal of the 
war and Peace 
of Westphalia. 



Troubles of 
the young 
Republic. 



ensuing wars with England and France weakened him to 
such a degree that he never returned to his attack upon his 
rebel subjects with his early vigor. Moreover, his great 
genera], Parma, died in the year 1592, while the Dutch, who 
had hitherto reaped nothing but misfortune upon the battle 
field, put themselves under the command of a gifted leader 
in the person of Maurice of Nassau, William's son and heir, 
who had a special genius for conducting sieges, and who 
won back place after place, while the hardy Dutch sailors 
swept home and foreign waters clear of Spanish fleets. It 
was the Spaniards now who were pressed in their turn. 
When, in 1598, Philip was nearing his end, his cause among 
the Dutch had become hopeless; still, too proud to acknowl- 
edge defeat, he stubbornly fought on, and his son Philip 
III. persisted in the same wasteful and impracticable course. 
Only when utterly exhausted did he humble his pride suffi- 
ciently to agree, in the year 1609, to a Twelve Years' Truce. 

It was not the end, but as good as the end. When the 
truce was over (1621), the Thirty Years' War was raging in 
Europe, and although Spain tried to make the confusion 
serve her purposes, and again attacked the Dutch, the firm 
resistance of the hardy little nation rendered the second ef- 
fort at subjugation even more vain than the first. When the 
Peace of Westphalia (1648) put an end to the long German 
war, Spain at last declared herself ready for the great re- 
nunciation, and acknowledged the unqualified independence 
of the Dutch Republic. 

But abundant as was the harvest of glory which the young 
Republic gathered in its eighty years' struggle with Spain, 
it was not saved the shocks and sorrows which are the com- 
mon lot of life. A source of very constant trouble lay in the 
loose confederation of the seven provinces. It has been 
stated that the Union of Utrecht did not create a strong 
central authority and left the provincial governments prac- 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 175 

tically in control. As a result the Republic seemed fre- Weakness of 
quently on the point of going to pieces, and was maintained tion. 
largely by the fact that Holland, being more important than 
the other six provinces put together, could impose her will 
on them. This is the federal difficulty under which the new 
Republic labored, but no less disturbing was what we may 
oall the Orange problem. Maurice had contributed im- 
mensely to the ultimate success of the Dutch, and thus what 
his father had begun well he had ended brilliantly. The 
hearts of a grateful people turned to him; they made him 
Stadtholder or governor; they gave him the command on 
land and sea. There were those, however, who believed 
his position incompatible with republican tradition, and 
Maurice, who nursed a vast ambition, must be acknowledged 
to have lent some color to their suspicions. It was mur- 
mured in secret that he wished to make himself king. To 
any such ambition the rich burgher class, who by reason of 
a narrow franchise dominated in the government of city and 
province, were bitterly opposed, as likely to interfere with 

their monopoly of power, and under their able leader, John 

of Barneveldt, they began to organize in opposition to the 
House of Nassau. Thus the burgher and Orange parties, Republicans 
representing respectively oligarchical and monarchical prin- 
ciples, stood face to face. They clashed for the first time 
with violence in 1619, when Maurice by a very high-handed 
act seized Barneveldt and had him executed. Therewith 
the Orange party acquired an ascendancy which lasted till 
the middle of the century, when the burghers once more got 
the upper hand. In fact, the whole seventeenth century is 
marked by a continual fluctuation of control from Orangists 
to burghers and back again. Although Spain hoped much 
from these dissensions, they benefited her nothing, and 
hardly impaired, even momentarily, the marvellous Dutch 
development. 



and Orangists. 



176 



The Revolt of the Netherlands 



In fact, the commercial and intellectual advance of the 
Republic during the course of the war remains the most 
astonishing feature of the period. It was as if the heroic 
struggle gave the nation an irresistible energy, which it 
could turn with success into any channel. The little sea- 
board state, which human valor had made habitable almost 
against the decrees of nature, became in the seventeenth 
century not only one of the great political powers of Eu- 
rope, but actually the leader in commerce and in certain 
branches of industry; contributed, beyond any other nation, 
to contemporary science; and produced a school of painting 
the glories of which are hardly inferior to those of the Ital- 
ian schools of the Renaissance. Such names as Hugo Gro- 
tius (d. 1645), the founder of international law; Spinoza 
(d. 1677), die philosopher; Rembrandt (d. 1674) and Frans 
Hals (d. 1666), the painters, furnish sufficient support to the 
claim of the United Provinces to a leading position in the his- 
tory of civilization. At the bottom of the unrivalled material 
prosperity was the world-wide trade of the cities lining the 
coast. It was particularly extensive with the East Indies, 
and here were developed the most permanent and produc- 
tive of the Dutch colonies, although there were others 
planted in Asia, Africa, and America. The city of Amster- 
dam, in the province of Holland, was the heart of the vast 
Dutch trade, and, much like London to-day, performed the 
banking business and controlled the money market of the 
entire world. 

It was a tragical fate that awaited the southern prov- 
inces, which had remained Catholic and had more or less 
docilely submitted to the Spanish tyranny. They had to 
pay the inevitable penalty of resigning the rights with which 
their fathers had endowed them; henceforth their spirit 
was broken. Flanders and Brabant, which had once been 
celebrated as the paradise of Europe, fell into decay. The 



And Triumph of the Seven United Provinces 177 

touch of intolerant Spain, here as everywhere, acted like a 
blight. It is a relief to note that in one branch of culture, 
at least, the inhabitants continued to distinguish themselves. 
The names of the great painters Rubens (d. 1640) and 
Van Dyck (d. 1641)' witnessed that the old Flemish spirit 
occasionally stirred in the tomb where it had been laid by 
Alva and Philip, and justified the hope that the future would 
perhaps see a resurrection. 




CHAPTER IX 

THE REFORMATION AND THE CIVIL WARS IN FRANCE 

References: Johnson, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 
Chapter IX.; Wakeman, Europe, 1598-17 15, Chapter 
II. (Henry IV.), Chapter VI. (Richelieu and the Thirty 
Years' War), Chapter VII. (Richelieu and Centraliza- 
tion); Kitchin, History of France, Vol. II.; Baird, 
Rise of the Huguenots; Baird, The Huguenots and 
Henry of Navarre; Willert, Henry of Navarre; 
Besant, Coligny; Lodge, Richelieu; Perkins, Riche- 
lieu; Perkins, France under Richelieu and Mazarin. 

Source Readings: Translations and Reprints, Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, Vol. III., No. 3 (Death of Coligny, 
Edict of Nantes, etc.); Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., 
Chapter XXVIII. (St. Bartholomew, Edict of Nantes). 

The wars of We have already examined the monarchy of France with 

Spainover a yiew to acquainting ourselves with its internal position 
Ital y- and its international policy at the beginning of the Modern 

Period. We have seen that the king's power was very 
extensive, because he had a revenue which was independent 
of the meeting of his estates, and which he could use, if he 
pleased, to keep an army dependent on himself alone. En- 
couraged by their splendid position, the kings aspired to 
play a great role and attempted to conquer Italy. Charles 
VIII. inaugurated this adventurous policy with the famous 
invasion of 1494, did some local mischief, and retired much 
^s he had come. He had, however, accomplished one 
thing heavy with consequences; he had aroused the jealousy 
of Spain. From this moment began the struggle between 

178 



Civil Wars in France* 179 

France and Spain for the possession of Italy, that filled 
Europe with wars and rumors of wars for the next half cen- 
tury. We have seen that Charles VIII. was baffled; his 
successor, Louis XII., began auspiciously, but his successes, 
too, passed away like vapor. Francis I., on his accession in 
1 51 5, returned once more to the assault, occupied Milan 
after the victory of Marignano, and held it for some years. 
But his history is a repetition of the fate of his predecessors. 
Spain would not hear of sharing Italy with another power, 
and at the battle of Pavia (1525), where Francis himself 
was captured, raised her banner over Lombardy. Again 
and again Francis renewed the war, like a man held by a 
spell; but he was no match for the steady, ponderous policy 
of his adversary, Charles V. The Spanish conquest* of Victory in- 
Italy was slow but irresistible, and when Francis died in Spain. 
1547 it looked like an accomplished fact. Wearisome and 
apparently unprofitable as the long conflict with Charles V. 
was, it had one feature redounding to the French king's 
honor, for without the stubborn fight made by Francis, 
Europe might have fallen under the dominion of the power- 
ful emperor. However complete his victories in Italy and 
the Netherlands were, Charles discovered that the resistance 
to him stiffened the moment he entered French territory. 
France and its king were capable of sudden heroism when it 
was a question of maintaining the integrity of the nation, 
and by vigorously upholding France they indirectly saved 
all Europe from subjection. 

Of equal importance with the Italian wars is the question Attitude of 
of the Reformation and the course it took during the reign the Reforma- 
of Francis. Naturally, France could not avoid being af- tlon ' 
fected by so universal a movement, and, naturally, the at- 
titude toward it of a king so nearly absolute was of the 
highest consequence to its progress. Francis was a product 
of that worldlier Renaissance which arrived at its best ex- 



180 The Reformation 

pression in Italy in a brilliant reign of art and letters. For 
the more austere side of the movement which found vent, 
especially in the north, in the desire for a nobler religious 
life, he had little understanding. His early plunge into 
Italian life emphasized his natural bent. What he saw in 
the peninsula fascinated him, the social refinement, the 
luxury of dress and dwelling, the literature and art. He 
cultivated the friendship of the great painters — Leonardo 
da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Titian, Andrea del Sarto — and 
rejoiced not a little when he succeeded in carrying some of 
them away to his own France. Occupied with such interests, 
religious and dogmatic quarrels were not likely to touch him 
very closely, and he would incline on the whole to let them 
alone. This course the king pursued until he made the 
disconcerting discovery that the religious agitations had a 
political side and were involving him in difficulties with the 
Pope and the rigid Catholic element of his people. Then 
he struck at the reformers, not from religious enthusiasm, 
it will be observed, but from what he set down as reasons of 
state. 

The Reformation in France, as everywhere else, started 
from small beginnings. Humanism had spread a vague 
longing for the reform of life instate and Church, and at the 
opening of the sixteenth century certain select spirits began 
definitely to formulate their protest against existing condi- 
tions. The leader in the humanistic circle was Jacques 
Lefevre. As early as 15 12 he translated St. Paul's Epistles, 
deriving from them that doctrine of justification by faith 
which under the strong championship of Luther became 
the very cornerstone of Protestantism. When one of Le- 
fevre's pupils became bishop of Meaux, he summoned his 
old master and other kindred spirits about him, and with 
their help made the town of Meaux the centre of the new 
religious spirit and the diocese of Meaux its seed-bed. When 



And the Civil Wars in France 181 

Luther's writings began to appear, the circle at Meaux was 
far from receiving them unconditionally, but was in general 
not displeased at the assault made upon the stolid self- 
satisfaction of Rome. Daily the partisans of reform grew, 
especially, it would seem, among the artisan class. But that 
the upper class was not left entirely unaffected is proved by Queen Ma** 
the case of Queen Margaret of Navarre, the sister of Francis Navarre. 
I., who, although she never formally separated from the old 
Church, became the friend and patron of the men who 
propagated the new ideas. Her attitude, vacillating between 
the old and the new, but not definitely committed to either, 
is typical of many people in France during the next genera- 
tion. 

From the first the theological faculty of the University of Orthodoxy 

•n ■ t_- i. i jii o-u j intrenched in 

Fans, which was known under the name borbonne, and tne Sorbonne. 
which had enjoyed an immense reputation in the Middle 
Ages, undertook to combat the movement of reform in 
France. The learned doctors prided themselves on their 
orthodoxy and raised a great outcry over the spread of 
heretical ideas. Nevertheless, their opposition was not 
likely to count for much, unless they could make the king 
act in their interest. That proved difficult, owing to the 
tolerance of Francis, until the disastrous battle of Pavia 
(1525) made him a prisoner and reduced the country to 
serious straits. The mother of Francis, Louise of Savoy, 
who acted as regent during his captivity, was ready to go 
down on her knees for help to almost anybody, and when she 
discovered that she could have the support of the Catholic 
clergy only at the cost of persecution, she consented. Francis 
on his return from Madrid quashed the heretical proceed- 
ings for a while, but as his need of ecclesiastical support 
continued, he saw himself obliged before long to return Francis be- 
to the policy of repression. It was in one of these periods secutor! pe 
of persecution, in 1533, that there was banished from 



182 



The Reformation 



TheWalden- 
sian Massacre, 
1545- 



The persecu- 
tion of Henry 
II. 



Persecution 

in hands of 
the regular 
courts of law. 



France a young man who was destined to make the world 
resound with his name — John Calvin. In this way, urged 
on by the Pope, whose alliance he needed, or by the 
Church of France, whose money and influence were essen- 
tial to his plans, he drifted into a policy of persecution. 
Before he died his measures had acquired a severity that 
might have won the applause of Loyola and his newly formed 
order of Jesuits. The climax was reached in the famous 
Waldensian Massacre. The Waldenses were a simple and 
thrifty peasant people, who dwelt among the western Alps, 
and who, because they were half-forgotten in their remote 
valleys, had remained in undisturbed possession of certain 
doctrines spread by one Peter Waldo back in the twelfth 
century and condemned as heretical. The Roman intoler- 
ance of the sixteenth century found them out, and the king, 
yielding at last to the long-continued pressure, signed the 
order for their extermination. In 1545 the snow-capped 
mountains of the Alps witnessed a terrible scene. Three 
thousand helpless souls were massacred, hundreds were 
dragged from their homes to wear out their lives in the 
galleys, and many other hundreds were driven into exile. 

Francis was succeeded by Henry II. (1547-59) who had 
little in common with his courtly, affable, and somewhat 
frivolous predecessor. If Francis persecuted from political 
necessity, Henry did so from deliberate preference. He had 
a sombre streak in his character, indicative of the shadow 
which the approaching Catholic reaction was casting before. 
On the day of his coronation he said to a high French prel- 
ate that he would make it a point of honor to exterminate 
from his kingdom all whom the Church denounced. This 
promise he took seriously, laboring without rest to uproot 
heresy from his realm. He even had the desire to establish 
the Inquisition with its vigorous machinery of courts, prisons, 
and police. But here he met with opposition from, the Parlia- 



And the Civil Wars in France 183 

ments. Heresy had hitherto belonged to their jurisdiction, 
and they did not care to have their power clipped for the 
advantage of the clergy. Therefore the Inquisition, techni- 
cally speaking, never was admitted into France; but the 
Parliaments, urged on by the zealous king, did such cruel 
work in condemning Protestants to death and confiscating 
the property of suspected persons, that it is hard to see how 
die Inquisition could have done more. But cruelty was of no 
avail. Protestant opinions continued to circulate, spreading 
chiefly from Geneva, where the exiled Calvin had by this 
time established his Reformed Church, and before Henry 
died several dozen congregations had sprung into existence, 
which, like the early Christians, conducted forbidden wor- 
ship in garrets and cellars in the perpetual shadow of an- 
nihilation. 

If Henry was largely occupied with the persecution of Henry and 
the Protestants, who stubbornly refused to be exterminated, w i tn Spain, 
he did not, therefore, neglect the foreign interests of France. 
As the heir of his predecessors he found himself involved in 
a sharp rivalry with Spain. The chief object of that rivalry 
had been Italy, and the matter, when brought to the issue of 
arms, had been decided again and again in favor of Spain. 
At the time of Henry's accession Italy was seemingly secure 
in the hands of the victor, but that did not keep Henry, with 
a resolution more bold than discreet, from challenging the 
fact. That he gained no more than his predecessors we 
have seen in Chapter VI, for he was obliged to sign with 
Spain the Pp^p <~,f ^pt^a^.rcrryi^d^ (1559), which was 
in substance a complete renunciation of the claims of his 
house to a position in Italy. But the Spanish wars of Hen- 
ry's time were, nevertheless, not so entirely unp ofitable for 
France as the long struggle of his father had been. When Territorial 
in 1552 the German Protestants, inspired and led by Maurice Hen^* * 
of Saxony, rose against Charles V., Henry II., in return for 



1 84 



The Reformation 



his alliance with the princes, was permitted to occupy the 
three border bishoprics of the empire, Metz, Toul, and 
Verdun; and when in 1557 and 1558 Philip II. defeated the 
French at St. Quentin and Gravelines, the duke of Guise 
retaliated by suddenly pouncing upon and seizing from the 
English, who were the allies of Philip, the port of Calais. 
The sum of Henry's wars is that by the Treaty of Cateau- 
Cambresis the French definitely abandoned Italy, but 
adopted in its place, as is shown by the acquisition of the 
three bishoprics and of Calais, a policy of expansion upon 
their eastern and northern frontier. This was a much more 
natural ambition for the sovereign of a country situated like 
France, and set a precedent which had an important effect 
on Henry's successors. With his death the kingdom fell for 
a while into an eclipse through civil dissensions, but when it 
recovered, it undertook to push out its border to the east 
and north. In consequence of this diversion of French 
ambition the rivalry with Spain tended to fall into abeyance, 
and in its place arose the rivalry with the country most 
directly threatened by the change of direction in the French 
advance — Germany. 

When Henry signed the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, it 
was with the clear consciousness that it was necessary for all 
foreign wars to cease until the matter which was every day 
becoming more pressing and more baffling, namely, the 
spread of Protestant opinion, had been attended to. In 
league with Philip he designed to extirpate heresy, root and 
branch. The new alliance was signalized by the marriage 
of his daughter Elizabeth to the Spanish king. At a tour- 
nament which was a feature of the prolonged celebration, 
Henry rode into the lists against the captain of his guard. 
A chance splinter from his antagonist's lance entered his 
eye, and he died before he could realize his dream of purging 
his realm of the Protestant infection. 



And the Civil Wars in France 185 

Until this time the Protestants of France had suffered Protestantism 
their persecutions in patience. But now the time came foritsufef 
when they organized themselves more perfectly and offered 
resistance to their oppressors. This was no more than hap- 
pened everywhere, for the intolerance of the dominant relig- 
ion looked upon every rival faith as wrong and pernicious, 
and hence insisted on its suppression, if necessary, by the 
sword. The result of Protestant resistance was a long civil 
war, in which became involved other issues besides the in- 
itial one of religion. The reader will recall a similar confu- 
sion of issues in Germany and England. [When in 1546 
civil war broke out between the German Protestants and 
the emperor, Maurice of Saxony used the opportunity to 
advance his own fortunes in the world; and when in 1553 
Edward VI. died, the duke of Northumberland, on the 
plea of religion, tried to put his own daughter-in-law, the 
Lady Jane Grey, upon the English throne. \ The inference 
to be drawn from these examples is that many mean, sor- 
did, and personal interests are likely to intrude themselves 
into every religious struggle in order to fight for their own 
ends under the mask of religion. We shall presently meet 
this deplorable mixture of religious and selfish motives in 
the civil wars of France.' 

At the death of Henry, his son Francis, who was but Francis II. 
sixteen years old, and physically and mentally feeble, suc- 
ceeded to the throne. When the power in an absolute 
monarchy such as France practically was at this time is 
not exercised by the sovereign, it is inevitably seized by 
some ambitious man or faction. The conditions in the 
court which surrounded the boy king have therefore an un- 
usual interest./'' 

The wife of the feeble Francis was a queen in her own Queen Mary 
right, Mary of Scotland. Although a woman of parts, she 
was of her husband's age and too inexperienced to assume 



1 86 



The Reformation 



The Bourbons. 



Alliance of 
Bourbons and 
Protestants. 



Catherine de' 
Medici, the 
queen-mother. 



control in his name. Her presence on the throne, however, 
offered an opportunity for the ambition of her two uncles, 
brothers of her mother and heads of the great House of 
Guise. The older was Francis, duke of Guise; the younger 
was a churchman, Cardinal Lorraine. They seized the reins, 
and because they were ardent Catholics continued Henry 
II. 's policy of Protestant persecution. 

There were those, however, who looked with jealousy 
upon the rule of the Guises and called it usurpation. They 
were the princes of the House of Bourbon, a younger branch 
of the royal family. The head of the house was sovereign 
of what was left of the kingdom of Navarre in the Pyrenees 
and- was known as King Anthony. The younger was Louis, 
prince of Conde. They contended that, as princes of the 
blood royal, they had a better right to rule for the feeble king 
than the family of Guise, and naturally everybody at court 
who had a grudge against the Guises came to their support. 
Thus the Bourbon princes headed a party of "malcon- 
tents," who were ready to seize every opportunity to rid 
themselves of their rivals. In casting about they could not 
but observe that the Guises were also hated by the Protes- 
tants whom they persecuted. Out of this common enmity 
there soon grew an intimacy and an alliance. Anthony in 
a faithless, vacillating manner, Conde more firmly, accepted 
the Reformed faith, and many of the "malcontents" — high- 
placed courtiers and noblemen for the most part — following 
their example, it came to pass that French Protestantism 
became inextricably involved with political intrigue. It was 
at this period that the party name of Huguenots, a term of 
uncertain and disputed origin, was fixed upon the French 
Protestants. 1 

Between the rival court factions of Bourbon and Guise, 



1 The most probable hypothesis is that Huguenot is a corruption of the 
German word Eidgenossen, a name applied to the Swiss Confederation. 



And the Civil Wars in France 187 

and belonging to neither, stood a person not highly regarded 
at first, but destined to become famous — Catherine de' Me- 
dici. She was a Florentine princess, widow of Henry II. 
and mother of the young king. Protestant contemporaries 
came to look upon her as an incarnate fiend, but one of her 
chief antagonists, who afterward became King Henry IV. of 
France, judged her more leniently and correctly. He once 
silenced an over-harsh critic by asking what was she to do, 
an anxious mother, torn hither and thither by the fiercest 
of party feuds, and with no adviser on whom she could rely. 
In this apology of the great king lies probably the key to 
Catherine's career. She was, above all, a mother, mother 
of royal children, for whom she desired to preserve the 
throne of France. Doubtless, too, after she had once tasted 
the sweets of power, she clung to them with selfish tenacity 
as men and women will. Armed only with her woman's wit 
she plunged into the conflict of parties, and like other rulers 
of her time intrigued, bribed, and prevaricated to keep her- 
self afloat. Thus she might even lay claim to our regard if 
her shifty policy had not involved her in one act which must 
forever smirch her name. We shall see that she was largely 
responsible for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

Out of these factions around the throne grew the in- The troubles 
trigues which led to the long religious wars in France. It 
is needless to try to put the blame for them on one or the 
other side. Given a weakened royal executive, the im- 
placable religious temper which marks the society of the 
sixteenth century, and a horde of powerful, turbulent, and 
greedy nobles, and civil war is a necessary consequence. We 
can notice only the more prominent symptoms of the coming 
outbreak. The path of the Guises was beset with con- Conspiracy of 
spiracies, instigated or connived at by the Bourbon princes. m olse ' IS c ' 
But they managed to keep the upper hand. On one occa- 
sion, at Amboise in 1560, they took a direful vengeance upon 



The Reformation 



Death of 
Francis, De- 
cember, 1560. 



Catherine in 
control. 



Catherine re- 
solves on 
toleration. 



The Massacre 
of Vassy, 1562. 



their adversaries, the Huguenots and "malcontents," by 
hanging groups of them to the battlements of the king's 
castle at Amboise and drowning others in the Loire. 

But their downfall was at hand. In December, 1560, the 
boy king Francis died, and his widow Mary, finding her role 
in France exhausted, prepared to leave for Scotland. Thus 
the props upon which the power of the Guises depended 
broke under them. The successor of Francis was his 
brother Charles IX., a weakling and a minor, who was but 
ten years old. King Anthony of Navarre, as nearest of kin, 
might have put forward a claim to the regency, but peevishly 
yielded the honor to the queen-mother. Catherine, there- 
fore, for the first time held the reins of power. Desirous, 
above all, of maintaining her son's authority, and filled with 
the sense of the difficulty of her position between Guise and 
Bourbon, she hit upon a policy of balance and moderation, 
called representatives of both hostile factions into her council, 
and published an F^dict of Toleration, the first issued in 
France, granting to the Huguenots a limited right of worship. 
Here was a decided change of policy, exhibiting Catherine 
in the light of a promoter of the cause of religious liberty. 
But her good intentions came to naught, were bound to 
come to naught among men who, like the Protestants and 
Catholics of the sixteenth century, were passionately set on 
realizing their own religious system without the abatement 
of one jot or tittle. While the Catholics were imbittered 
by the extent of Catherine's concessions, the Protestants 
grumbled at the remaining limitations, and among the more 
fanatical followers of the two parties, sometimes without 
provocation, there occurred sharp conflicts, frequently end- 
ing in terrible excesses. 

One of these conflicts, the Massacre of Vassy (1562), put 
an end to hesitation and led to war. The duke of Guise 
was passing through the country with a company of armed 



And the Civil Wars in France 189 

retainers, when he happened, at Vassy, upon a group of 
Huguenots, assembled in a barn for worship. Sharp words 
Jed to an encounter, and before the duke rode away sixty 
persons lay dead upon the ground and more than two hun- 
dred had been wounded. Fierce indignation seized the 
Protestants throughout France, and when the duke of Guise 
was received by the Catholics of Paris like a hero returning 
from successful war, and Catherine declared herself unable 
to call him to account, Conde issued an appeal and took the 
field. 

Thus were inaugurated the religious wars of France, Character of 
which were not brought to a conclusion until 1598, by the 
Edict of Nantes, and which in their consequences contin- 
ued to trouble the country well into the next century. For 
our purpose it is sufficient to look upon the period from 
1562 to 1598 as one war, though it is true that there were 
frequent suspensions of arms, supporting themselves upon 
sham truces and dishonest treaties. 1 The war, like all the 
religious wars of the century, was waged with inhuman 
barbarity, and conflagration, pillage, massacre, and assas- 
sination blot every stage of its progress. Protestants and 
Catholics alike became brutes, and vied with each other 
in their efforts to turn their country into a desert. 

When the Treaty of St. Germain (1570), granting the The^Peaceof 
Protestants the largest toleration which they had yet en- 
joyed, temporarily closed ths chapter of conflicts, many of 
the original leaders had passed away. King Anthony of 
Navarre had been killed in battle against his former friends, 
the Huguenots, whom he had basely deserted (1562); the 
duke of Guise had been assassinated (1563); and Conde 



St. Germain. 



1 Eight wars have been distinguished as follows: First war, 1562-63; 
second war, 1567-68; third war, 1568-70 (ended by the Peace of St. Ger- 
main); fourth war, 1572-73; fifth war, 1574-76; sixth war, 1577; seventh 
war, 1579-80; eighth war (called the War of the Three Henries), 1585-89, 
which continued in another form until the Edict of Nantes (1598). 



190 



The Reformation 



Admiral 
Coligny. 



Effort at pe 
after St. Ge 
main, 1570. 



Marriage of 
Henry and 
Margaret. 



had been treacherously slain in a charge of horse (1569). 
The head of the Huguenot party was now Anthony's young 
son, King Henry of Navarre, but the intellectual leadership 
fell, for the present, upon Gaspard de Coligny. 

The new leader deserves a word in passing, for he was 
one of the few high-born " malcontents," who entered the 
Protestant ranks for other reasons than political rancor, and 
who, while fighting with conviction for the religion he pre- 
ferred, never forgot, in the wild broils of partisanship, that 
he was a Frenchman and owed a duty to his country. He 
belonged to the great family of Chatillon, was allied through 
his mother with the family of Montmorency, and without 
going to sea held, anomalously enough, the honorary post 
of Admiral of France. Take him for all in all, he was 
the most honorable and attractive character of his time. 

Meanwhile, a moderate party had been formed in France, 
which tried to make the Peace of St. Germain the beginning 
of a definite settlement. It was only too clear that the blood- 
shed, which was draining the country of its strength, ruined 
both parties and brought profit to none except the enemies 
of France. The more temperate of both sides, Coligny 
prominent among them, began to see the folly of the struggle, 
and King Charles himself, who was now of age and had 
replaced the Regent Catherine, inclined to this view. And 
yet such were the mutual suspicions and animosities that 
the effort to remove all cause of quarrel precipitated the 
most horrible of all the incidents of the war, the Massacre 
of St. Bartholomew. 

After the Peace of St. Germain, Coligny had come up ta 
Paris and had rapidly acquired great influence with the king, 
The young monarch seemed to be agreed to put an end foi 
all time to internal dissension, enforce strictly the terms o\ 
the new peace with its provision of a limited right of worship 
for the Protestants, and turn the strength of the united 



And the Civil Wars in France 191 

country against the hereditary enemy, Spain. For this 
purpose he arranged, as a preliminary step, a marriage 
between his sister Margaret and young Henry of Navarre. 
Joyfully responding to the invitation of King Charles, the 
Huguenots poured in swarms into Paris to attend the 
wedding of their chief, which was celebrated on August 18, 

1572, 

The wedding seemed to inaugurate an era of Protestant Attempted as^ 
triumphs. Coligny's star, shedding the promise of tolera- cdTgny. 011 ° 
tion, was steadily rising; that of the Guises and their ultra- 
Catholic supporters, standing for religious dissension, was 
as steadily setting. Catherine de' Medici, originally hardly 
more attached to the Guises than to the Bourbons and 
Huguenots, because primarily solicitous only about herself 
and her children, had lately lost her influence with the king. 
She knew well whither it had gone, and fixed the hatred of 
a passionate nature upon Coligny. Burning to regain her 
power, she now put herself in communication with the 
Guises. On August 2 2d, as Coligny was leaving the palace 
of the king, a ball, meant for his breast, struck him in the 
arm. Charles, who hurried in alarm to the bedside of his 
councillor, was filled with indignation. "Yours the wound, 
mine the sorrow," he said, and swore to search out the 
assassin and his accomplices. 

The terror of discovery and punishment which now The Massacre 
racked Catherine and the Guises drove them to devise some omew. a 
means by which they might deflect the king's vengeance. 
On the spur of the moment, as it were, they planned the 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew. This famous massacre is, 
therefore, not to be considered, as was once the custom, the 
carefully laid plot of the Catholic heads of Europe, but 
rather as the bloodthirsty improvisation of a desperate band. 
Catherine de' Medici and the Guises were its authors, and 
the fervidly Catholic population of Paris was the instrument 



192 The Reformation 

of their spite. How the king's consent was got when all was 
ready would be difficult to understand, if we did not know 
that he was weak and cowardly, and not entirely sound of 
mind. In a session of the council, Catherine plied him with 
the bugbear of a Huguenot plot, until in an access of insane 
rage he cried out that they should all be butchered. In the 
early morning hours of St. Bartholomew's day (August 24th) 
the tocsin was sounded from all the churches of Paris. At 
the signal the Catholic citizens slipped noiselessly from their 
houses, entered the residences which had been previously 
designated by a chalk mark as the homes of the Huguenots, 
and slaughtered the inmates in their beds. Coligny was one 
of the first victims of the ensuing fury, Henry of Guise him- 
self presiding at the butchery of his Huguenot rival. That 
night the streets flowed with blood, and for many days after 
the provinces, incited by the example of the capital, indulged 
in similar outrages. The grim saying went the rounds that 
the high espousals of Navarre must be given a tinge of 
crimson. The bridegroom himself was in danger of assassi- 
nation, but managed to save his life by temporarily renounc- 
ing his frith. The victims of this fearful exhibition of fa- 
naticism amounted to 2,000 in Paris, and 6,000 to 8,000 in 
the rest of France. We can better understand the spirit of 
the time when we hear that the Catholic world, the Pope 
and Philip of Spain at its head, made no effort to conceal 
its delight at this easy method of getting rid of its religious 
adversaries. 
Henry III. War, with all its dreary incidents, straightway flamed up 

again. In 1574 Charles IX. died from natural causes, 
though the Huguenots were pleased to ascribe his death to 
remorse for his share in the great crime of St. Bartholomew. 
His brother, Henry III., succeeded him on the throne. A 
new element of interest was introduced into the struggle only 
when the death of Henry's youngest brother, the duke of 



And the Civil Wars in France 193 

Alencon, and his own failure to have heirs, involved, with 
the religious dispute, the question of the succession. 

By the law of the realm the crown would have to pass The question 
upon Henry's death to the nearest male relative, who was "ion. e succes " 
Henry of Navarre, head of the collateral branch of Bourbon. 
But Henry was a Huguenot, the enemy of the faith of the 
vast majority of his future subjects. When his succession 
became probable, Henry of Guise and his followers formed 
the Holy League, which pledged itself to maintain the inter- 
est of the Roman Church at all hazards and never permit a 
heretic to sit on the throne of France. While the Catholics League and 
were forming a partisan organization regardless of their u s uenos - 
obligation to their country, the Huguenots showed a spirit 
no less narrow and sectarian. They planned to form them- 
selves into a federal republic, practically independent of the 
kingdom of France. It was plain that party was becoming 
more and more, country less and less, and that the outcome 
of the wasteful civil strife would be the ruin and disruption 
of France. In consequence of these developments the king 
found himself in evil straits. As head of the state he was 
pledged to the interests of the country and was inclined to 
pursue a policy of reconciliation and peace. But the League 
and the Huguenots would have no peace except on their own 
terms, and the king, trying to hold his course between Scylla 
and Charybdis, was deserted by all except the handful of 
men who refused to share in the madness of partisan fury. 
In the new turn of the civil struggle three parties, each 
championed by a leader of the name of Henry, disputed the 
control of France. 

The new war, called the War of the Three Henries (1585- War of the 
89), steeped the country in such confusion that men soon r e nne ' 
indulged in every form of lawlessness without punishment. 
King Henry, an effeminate dandy with a fondness for lap- 
dogs and ear-rings, had gone to all lengths in order to main- 



194 



The Reformation 



Murder of 
Henry of 
Guise, 1588. 



Murder of 
Henry III., 
1589. 



Accession of 
Henry IV. 



tain his authority, and had practically resigned the real 
power into the hands of the head of the League; but at 
last, in December, 1588, he indignantly resolved to put an 
end to his humiliation. He invited Henry of Guise to his 
cabinet, and there had him treacherously despatched by his 
guard. Cowardice and rancor could go no further, and the 
League turned in horror from the murderer, Paris and 
Catholic France declaring for his deposition. In his despair 
the king fled to Henry of Navarre, and was advancing with 
his Huguenot subjects upon his capital, when a fanatical 
Dominican monk forced admission to his presence and killed 
him with a knife (August, 1589). With him the House of 
Valois came to an end. The question was now simply be- 
tween Henry of Navarre, the rightful claimant to the crown, 
and the League, which would have none of him. 

The new Henry, Henry IV., first king of the House of 
Bourbon, was a brave soldier, an intelligent ruler, and a 
courtly gentleman. He had his faults, springing from a gay, 
mercurial temperament, but intensely human as they were, 
they actually contributed to his popularity. He was con- 
fronted on his accession by the disconcerting fact that his 
followers were only a small part of France. The attachment 
of the Catholic majority he knew could only be won slowly, 
and force, he suspected from the first, would be of no avail. 
Therefore, he undertook patiently to assure the Catholics of 
the loyalty of his intentions and win their recognition. If 
the League could only have found a plausible rival for the 
throne, Henry might have been annihilated; but his claim 
was incontrovertible, and that was his strength. For the 
present no one thought of disarming. Henry won a number 
of engagements, notably the battle of Ivry (1590), but the 
League, still managed by the Guise faction in the person of 
Henry of Guise's younger brother, and supported by Philip 
of Spain, could not be scattered. 



And the Civil Wars in France 195 



For four years Henry waited for his subjects to come over The conver- 
to his side; then he took a decisive step and went over to slon ° enry 
theirs. The misery of his countrymen, racked by the end- 
less civil struggle, wrenched his heart; also he was in con- 
stant alarm lest the League or Philip II., or both in agree- 
ment, should impose on France an elected sovereign in his 
stead. In July, 1593, he solemnly abjured his faith, and 
was readmitted into the communion of the Roman Catholic 
Church. The effect was almost magical. He was recog- 
nized throughout France, the League fell apart, the king of 
Spain was deserted by his French partisans, and the war 
ceased. In February, 1594, he could proceed with his cor- 
onation at Chartres, and when a month later he approached 
Paris the gates were thrown open and he was received like 
a hero and a saviour by those same Parisians who in the 
period of his apostacy from the Church had spewed him out 
of their mouths. 

Henry's conversion fiercely excited contemporary opinion. Justified or 
By uncompromising Huguenots, by many Protestants the 
world over, the act was denounced as nothing less than trea- 
son. But by modern historians, whose judgment is far less 
affected by allegiance to a particular dogma, the conversion 
is regarded more leniently. In so far as we are inclined to 
admit that attachment to one's country is as lofty, if not a 
loftier consideration than attachment to one's Church, we 
have praise rather than blame for the patriot king. But 
even our altered standards of conduct do not excuse Henry 
for taking his change of sides so lightly. He disposed of 
his conversion with a smile and an epigram. Paris is well 
worth a Mass, he said to the circle of his courtiers. The 
sentiment confirms the earlier statement that we have in 
him a gay, sensuous cavalier, constitutionally incapable of 
being very serious about the great matter of religion, which 
occupied all the profounder spirits of the age. But his con- 



not? 



1 96 



77ie Reformation 



stitutional unfitness for religious passion redounded, as in 
the case of Elizabeth of England, to the advantage of his 
country. He could practise a genuine tolerance, and could 
undertake, on the basis of it, to carry through a solution of 
the religious conflict. 

The document in which Henry tried to arrange for the 
peaceful living side by side of Huguenots and Catholics ia 
known, from the town in which the king affixed his signa- 
ture, as the Edict of Nantes. It bears the date of April 13, 
1598, and falls naturally into the three sections of religious 
rights, civil rights, and political rights. Under the head of 
religious rights we note that Protestant worship was author, 
ized in two places in each bailiwick of France, as well as in 
the castles of noblemen. As a concession to the fanaticism 
of the day, the reformed service was expressly forbidden at 
Paris and at the royal court. In the matter of civil rights, a 
Huguenot was recognized as a full-fledged Frenchman, who 
was protected by the law wherever he went, and was eligible 
to any office. So far the settlement of Nantes was con- 
ceived in the modern spirit, and was far ahead of any solution 
found in any other country. But by the section dealing with 
political rights, the Protestants were granted an exceptional 
position, in entire disagreement with present-day concep- 
tions, and destined to prove incompatible with the interests 
and even the existence of the state. They could hold assem- 
blies in which they legislated for themselves, and they were 
put in military possession of a certain number of fortified 
towns, of which La Rochelle was the chief. As long as 
Henry lived, there was peace between Protestants and Cath- 
olics, but the tolerant spirit of Henry was appreciated by but 
a handful of men, and the mass of Protestants and Catho- 
lics continued to regard each other with venomous hatred. 
Once again we may see how in that age of religious passion 
intolerance was not so much the work of the governments 



And the Civil Wars in France 197 

as of the people themselves, a thing inborn as the love of kin 
or the fear of fire. Therefore, the strong hand of Henry 
had no sooner been withdrawn than the religious conflict 
threatened to revive. 

In the same year in which Henry disposed of the Protes- Peace with 
tant issue, he signed a treaty of peace with Philip II. Spain pain ' I59 ' 
had made common cause with the League, and was recog- 
nized by Henry as a dangerous enemy to his House and na- 
tion, but the time was not yet ripe for decisive action. The 
Peace of Vervins (1598) drew the boundary between France 
and Spain as determined in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis 

of 1559- 

France being now at peace within and without, Henry set Peace labors 

about the task of healing the wounds of his stricken country. Suiiy. nry an 
The finances were put in charge of a friend of his Hugue- 
not days, the duke of Sully, whose vigilance and honesty 
soon wiped out a large part of the state debt and converted 
the annual deficit into an annual surplus. Henry himself 
did all in his power to encourage agriculture, then as now 
the chief source of French prosperity. He built good 
roads, he favored new industries, especially the manufac- 
ture of silk, and he made a modest beginning toward acquir- 
ing for France a foothold in America by furthering French 
enterprise in the basin of the St. Lawrence. 

When, after years of reconstructive labor, Henry saw Henry resolves 
himself at the head of a flourishing commonwealth, he House of Haps- 
again turned with vigor to foreign affairs. The House of bur &- 
Hapsburg, reigning through its two branches in Spain and 
Austria, seemed to him, now as ever, the great enemy of 
France. Throughout the period of peace he had cultivated 
the friendship of the smaller powers of Europe — the Italian 
states, the Swiss, Holland — until he exercised a kind of pro- 
tectorship over them. Thus backed, he thought he might 
summon the House of Hapsburg once more to the field. A 



198 



The Reformation 



The regency 
of Maria de' 
Medici. 



local quarrel in Germany was just about to furnish him with 
the necessary pretext for beginning the war, when on May 
14, 16 10, he was laid low by the dagger of a fanatic named 
Ravaillac. 

At Henry's death his son Louis XIII. (1610-43) was but 
nine years old. Accordingly, a regency was proclaimed 
under Louis's mother, Maria de' Medici, whom Henry IV. 
had married upon the grant of a divorce from his first wife, 
Margaret of Valois. Maria, an Italian of the same House as 
the former regent, Catherine de' Medici, was a large and 
coarse woman ("une grosse banquikre" was her husband's 
ungallant description of her), without personal or political 
merit. The sovereign power was, therefore, soon in a bad 
way. Italian favorites exercised control, and the turbulent 
nobility, which had been repressed by the firm hand of Henry 
IV., began again to aspire to political importance. Among 
these nobles the Huguenot aristocracy, who had been per- 
mitted by the Edict of Nantes to keep up an army and several 
fortified places, assumed an especially threatening tone, and 
judging from the confusion which followed Maria's assump- 
tion of power, it seemed more than likely that France was 
drifting into another era of civil war. 

If France was saved from this calamity, it was due, and 
solely due, to one man, Armand Jean du Plessis, known to 
fame as Cardinal Richelieu. When he entered the royal 
council, to become before long, by the natural ascendancy of 
his intellect, the leading minister (1624), the queen- regent 
had already been succeeded by the king; but under the king, 
who had much more of his mother than of his father in him, 
and was dull and slothful, the affairs of the realm had not 
been in the least improved. Richelieu, therefore, found 
himself confronted by a heavy task. But his unique position 
proved a help to him in fulfilling it. As a boy he had 
been destined for the Church, and at a ludicrously early 



And the Civil Wars in France 199 

age he had, by reason of his noble birth and the favor of 
the king, been made bishop of Lucon. Later he was hon- 
ored by the Pope with the cardinal's hat. His ecclesiastical 
dignities, added to his position in the state, raised his au- 
thority to a height where it could not be assailed while the 
king supported him. And this the king did to the fullest 
extent. That is the dullard Louis XIII. 's greatest merit in 
the eyes of history. While Richelieu lived, he retained, in 
spite of intrigues and conspiracies, the power in his hands 
and was the real king of France. 

Richelieu was one of those rare statesmen who can form Hispro- 
and carry through with an iron will a policy suited to the gramme ' 
needs of the country. His programme, which seems to have 
been inspired by that of Henry IV., falls into three sections. 
In the first place, he inherited Henry's tolerance, a circum- 
stance the more remarkable as he was a leading dignitary 
of the Roman Catholic Church. He would grant the 
Huguenots the civil and religious rights laid down in the 
Edict of Nantes, but their political rights, which made them 
almost independent of the state, he would ruthlessly destroy. 
His second aim was to clip the wings of the nobility once for 
all, and his third, to overthrow for the glory of France the 
power of the House of Hapsburg. 

He first attacked the pressing problem of the Huguenots. The Hugueno. 
Since Henry's death they had become restless and hung on pro em * 
the horizon like a thunder-cloud, ready to burst at any mo- 
ment. Richelieu proceeded cautiously, treated with them as 
long as negotiation was feasible, and suddenly, when the op- 
portunity came, invested their chief town, La Rochelle. A 
long siege followed, wherein the endurance of the beleaguered 
citizens proved no match for the skill of the tireless cardinal, 
who conducted the operations in person. The English fleet, 
sent by Charles I., tried to relieve the town, but in vain. In 
1628 the Rochellese, having lost 1 6,000 inhabitants through 



200 



The Reformation 



hunger and pestilence, surrendered at discretion. The next 
year the remnant of the Protestant forces in the south was 
likewise disarmed and Richelieu was master of the situation. 
But now his admirable moderation came to light. The 
ordinary ruler of the time would have compelled the beaten 
minority to conform to the religion of the majority or else 
be burned or banished. Not so Richelieu, true forerunner 
of the brotherhood of all Christian men. He confirmed to 
the Huguenots the civil and religious rights granted by the 
Edict of Nantes, and for the rest incorporated them into the 
state on the basis of equality with all other Frenchmen by 
cancelling their special political privileges. 

The turbulent nobles intrenched in the provinces, where 
they exercised most of the functions of the local governments, 
gave the cardinal much food for thought. With his clear 
eye he saw that they were an anomaly in a state aspiring to be 
modern. They carried on a veritable private warfare by 
their duelling habits, and defied the authorities from behind 
their fortified castles. So Richelieu threw himself upon 
duels and castles, declaring by edict that the time for them 
was past, and executing a few of the most persistent duel- 
lists as an example to their class. He also directly un- 
dermined their authority by settling in the provinces 
agents called intendants, who took supreme charge of jus- 
tice, police, and finances. These intendants were common- 
ers, who executed orders received from Paris, and marked 
the creation of a new and highly centralized administration, 
in place of the ancient feudal one with the power in the 
hands of the local magnates. By virtue of this systematic 
abasement of the nobility to the profit of the royal executive, 
it is frequently maintained that Richelieu created the ab- 
solute monarchy. This is not strictly true, for we have 
seen that the French kings had been becoming more and 
more powerful ever since the fifteenth century; but it is 



And the Civil Wars in France 201 

beyond contradiction that Richelieu eminently improved 
the king's position by his successful war upon the nobles. 

Here we are tempted to ask what became, in the presence Richelieu, the 
of this exaltation of the royal prerogative, of those institu- and the Pac- 
tions which still exercised some check on the king's will— liaments - 
the States- General and the Parliaments? Richelieu re- 
garded their pretensions with suspicion. The States-Gen- 
eral, composed of the three classes, clergy, nobles, and 
commoners, had been summoned by the regent in 16 14, 
quarrelled, as usual, among themselves, and accomplished 
nothing. Richelieu did not summon them again. They 
fell into oblivion and were not thought of until the absolute 
monarchy, one hundred and seventy-five years later, ac- 
knowledged its bankruptcy, and was reminded of this 
means of appealing to the people for aid. The Parliaments 
— there were ten of them in Richelieu's day — fared some- 
what better. They continued to act as supreme courts of 
justice, but their interference with political affairs the high- 
handed cardinal would not suffer. 

With the Huguenots at peace and the selfish nobility held Richelieu and 
in check, Richelieu could take up with vigor his foreign plans, Years' War. 
looking to the humiliation of the House of Hapsburg. It 
was a most convenient circumstance that Germany was con- 
vulsed at this time with the Thirty Years' War. (See next 
chapter.) With the instinct of a statesman Richelieu felt 
that if he helped the German Protestants against the Cath- 
olics, represented by the emperor and Spain, he would sooner 
or later acquire some permanent advantages for France. 
His gradual interference, developing from occasional subsi- 
dies of money to the recruitment of large armies, finally se- 
cured to his king the balance of power in the German war, 
and made France practical dictator of Europe when the 
Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended the struggle. Richelieu 
did not live to see this result (he died 1642), but the ad- 



202 The Reformation 

vantage which France secured on that occasion may be 
written down to his statesmanlike conduct of the government. 
Bloom of Many criticisms can be urged against Richelieu's rule; for 

instance, his handling of the finances was mere muddling, 
and his exaltation of the monarch at the expense of every 
other institution in the state led in the eighteenth century 
to dire disasters. But the sum of his achievement is none 
the less immense, when we reflect that he welded France into 
asolid union and made her supreme in Europe. The new 
splendor could not fail to stir the imagination, and favor 
the bloom of art and literature. The cardinal himself es- 
tablished the famous Academy of France as a kind of sov- 
ereign body in the field of letters (1635), and lived to see 
the birth of the French drama in the work of Corneille 
(" The Cid," 1636). This is an important circumstance, for 
France wajs destined in the days after Richelieu to exercise 
an even wider empire through her culture than through her 
arms. 



CHAPTER X 

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR AND THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 

References: Wakeman, Europe 1598-17 15, Chapters 
IV., V., VI.; Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War; Gin- 
dely, The Thirty Years' War (a detailed and scholarly 
work); Fletcher, Gustavus Adolphus. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Vol. II. , Chapter 
XXIX. (The Jesuits in Germany, Sack of Magdeburg, 
Treaty of Westphalia, etc.). 

The Peace of Augsburg of the year 1555 was undoubtedly Religious and 
a victory for the German Protestants. But it was also, since E^ofthe e&T 
it took the affairs of religion out of the hands of the emperor £ eace of Augs- 
and put them in the hands of the local powers, a victory of 
the princes. Henceforth the decline of the emperor was more 
certain than ever, while at the same time it became plain 
that the future of the German people depended on the ability 
of the princes to shape their territories into modern states. 

But if the Peace of Augsburg represents a victory of Prot- Unsolved re- 
estantism over Catholicism, and of the princes over the em- i^ us pro " 
peror, it was far from being a final settlement of the troubles 
of Germany. The peace left important matters in suspense. 
To mention only two: (1) It recognized Lutheranism with- 
out extending any rights whatever to Calvinism; and (2) the 
article called the Ecclesiastical Reservation, as interpreted 
by the Catholics, prohibited any further seizures of Church 
property. None the less, the Lutherans, who put their own 
reading upon the Ecclesiastical Reservation, continued to 
take monastic property and to appropriate abbacies and 

203 



204 



The Thirty Years' War 



Continued 
Protestant 
successes. 



<* 



The Catholic 
reaction. 



bishoprics wherever they had the power. Calvinism, too, 
in greater favor than Lutheranism among Protestants radi- 
cally inclined, continued to spread, although no law pro- 
tected it. Add to these difficulties the hot passion which 
every question of religion excited in the sixteenth century, 
and it is plain that the country was drifting into another 
civil war. 

That the struggle was adjourned for over half a century 
was due to a variety of causes. In the first place, the im- 
mediate successors of Emperor Charles V., Ferdinand I. 
(1556-64) and Maximilian II. (1564-76), were moderate 
men, who did their utmost to preserve peace. Their views 
were seconded by the leading Lutheran princes, inclined by 
the natural conservatism of successful men to rest content 
with what they had won. Besides, these princes entertained 
the hope that without war, by gradual infiltration into all 
classes of society and through all districts, Protestantism 
might make a clean sweep of Germany. And, really, for 
some years the prospects were excellent. Protestantism pos- 
sessed youth and confidence, and, in the Lutheran form at 
least, had a legal sanction. It continued to mount, like a tide, 
until it had covered the whole centre and north of Germany, 
and threatened the great bishoprics along the Rhine and the 
Hapsburg and Bavarian dominions in the south. To a dis- 
passionate observer it must have looked highly probable that 
the Roman Church, undermined in these, its last strongholds, 
would soon topple. But this culminating catastrophe never 
took place. For one thing, the dominant Lutherans were of 
too lax a temper to make the best of their opportunities, and 
in the second place, in the very nick of time the Catholic 
Counter-Reformation reached Germany, and instilled into 
the dying cause a new vigor. 

We have already taken note of how the Jesuits and the 
Council of Trent steadied the wavering Catholic ranks all 



And the Peace of Westphalia 205 

over the world. This effect did not make itself felt in Ger- 
many until the last quarter of the sixteenth century, when 
Rudolph II. (1576-1612) was upon the throne. Breaking 
pway from the moderate policy of his immediate predeces- 
sors, he set his heart on bringing the Roman Church once 
1 more to the front, and did all in his power to favor his 
friends, the Jesuits. Operating from the court of Vienna as 
a centre, and also from that of Bavaria, whose ruling family 
was, if possible, even more narrowly Catholic than the 
Hapsburgs, the devoted followers of Ignatius Loyola grad- 
ually spread in every direction. Their churches multiplied, 
and their schools, conducted with energy and intelligence, 
were largely attended. Presently the Protestant advance 
was checked all along the line, and an energetic Catholic 
propaganda began to score triumphs in those doubtful re- 
gions, chiefly of the south, where Protestantism was as yet 
but a matter of isolated outposts. 

By the beginning of the seventeenth century the tension Increasing 
between the parties was nearing the danger point, and every 
new incident increased the probability of a rupture. The 
affair of Donauworth indicated from what quarter the 
wind was now blowing over Germany. Donauworth, on 
the upper Danube, was a free city, meaning, it will be re- 
membered, that it governed itself like a small republic. 
The Protestant townsmen, being in the majority, ventured 
to break up a Catholic procession, for which deed the Em- 
peror Rudolph put the city under the ban of the Empire, 
and commissioned the duke of Bavaria to occupy it with 
an armed force. This done, the Catholic worship was re- 
established and Protestantism put down (1607). It was a The Protes- 
high-handed act and so excited the more radical Protestants I 6 s. ' 
that in 1608 they formed a Union to check similar aggressions. 
The duke of Bavaria met this measure by associating himself The Catholic 
with a number of bishops and abbots in a Catholic League ea s ue » x ° 9 ' 



206 The Thirty Years War 

(1609). When men between whom no love is lost go about 
armed, the chances of a clash are greatly increased. Never- 
theless, so general was the dread of civil war that, in spite of 
ever-increasing difficulties, the peace was preserved for an t 
other decade. 
The outbreak -The occasion that finally precipitated the long-expected 
1618. ' conflict was furnished by Bohemia. Bohemia was a king- 
dom but recently added to the dominions of the House of 
Hapsburg. Its inhabitants were Germans and Czechs, the 
Czechs, a Slavic people, being decidedly in the majority. In 
the fifteenth century Bohemia had risen into European prom- 
inence through its great citizen John Huss, who initiated 
a reform movement in the Church, and was condemned for 
it to a heretic's death at the stake. The wild rebellion of 
the followers of Huss was after many failures put down, 
but the discontented province continued to be a likely field 
for revolutionary agitation. In consequence, when Luther 
lifted his voice in Saxony his words raised an echo across the 
border and made many converts. Nor was the movement 
much hindered by the authorities until Emperor Rudolph 
came to the throne. Devoted son of the Church that he' 
was, he tried to suppress it, but, incapable and half insane, 
he only botched matters, and was in the end constrained to 
grant the Protestants a limited toleration in a charter of the 
year 1609. But both Rudolph and his successor Matthias 
(1612-19) carried out the terms of the charter grudgingly, 
and by many high-handed acts kept the suspicions of the 
Protestants alive. In the year 1618, angered beyond en- 
durance by the duplicity of their ruler, they rose in revolt. 
The emperor resided at Vienna, and was represented at 
Prague, the capital of his Bohemian kingdom, by a body of 
governors. These the insurgents attacked, invaded their 
castle, and summarily tossed two of them, with their secre- 
tary, out of the window into the fosse below. It was a fall 



And the Peace of Westphalia 207 

of sheer one hundred feet, but, wonderful to say, had no evil 
consequences. v The grateful victims, on scrambling out of 
the ditch, ascribed their rescue to the intervention of the 
Virgin Mary, but sceptical Protestants called attention to 
the soft heaps of refuse which had accumulated in the moat. 
As soon as the deed was done, the insurgents set up a gov- 
ernment of their own. Thus far the rebellion was a local 
Bohemian incident; but it proved to be the event which 
lighted the long-laid fuse and precipitated the great struggle 
known as the Thirty Years' War. 

Whoever makes a study of the Thirty Years' War will The periods 
be struck by the fact that it is really not so much a single Years' War. 
war as an aggregation of wars. It therefore falls naturally 
into different periods, designated by the question or power 
which is uppermost at the time. Five such periods are 
clearly distinguishable: the Bohemian Period (1618-20), 
the Palatine Period (1621-23), the Danish Period (1625- 
29), the Swedish Period (1630-35), and the French Pe- 
riod (1635-48). These divisions indicate how the struggle, 
beginning in Bohemia, spread like an infection, until it 
included all Europe. From Bohemia, where, we have 
seen, it had its origin, it ate its way into southern Ger- 
many into the region known as the Palatinate; this is the 
Palatine Period. Then slowly northern Germany and its 
nearest Protestant neighbor, Denmark, were drawn into 
its sphere; this is the Danish Period. And finally one and 
another foreign country was moved to take part, until the 
war, while continuing to be a German civil struggle, acquired 
something of the aspect of a world-clash between Protestant- 
ism and Catholicism, and something, too, of a duel between 
the two greatest reigning houses of Europe, Hapsburg and 
Bourbon. 



208 



The Thirty Years War 



The Bo- 
hemians ap- 
peal to the 
German 
Protestants. 



Ferdinand <I., 
1619-37. 



The Bohemian Period (1618-20). 

The revolutionists at Prague had hardly set up their 
government, when they appealed to the German Protestants 
for help. The Lutherans of the north denied them even 
their sympathy, while the Calvinists, inhabiting chiefly the 
south and associated together in the Protestant Union, offered 
advice, but little help. The fact was that the Bohemians 
were in rebellion, and rebellion is a matter which conserva- 
tive men will always treat with caution. There were, how- 
ever, in the Union a number of flighty, sanguine characters, 
who were bent on striking, through the Bohemian matter, a 
blow at the Hapsburgs and Catholicism. Chief of these was 
the president of the Union, the Elector Frederick, ruling 
over the region called the Palatinate, of which Heidelberg 
was the capital. He began by giving the rebellion secret 
help, nursing the hope, meanwhile, that he would in the 
end be able to draw the Union with him. In this he was 
mistaken. The Union temporized, adopted a few useless 
measures, and before long dissolved itself. Its history is 
practically zero. 

Meanwhile, hostilities had begun between the emperor 
and his revolted subjects. They had not advanced far 
when the incapable Matthias died (March, 1619), and the 
Hapsburg dominions passed to a better man, Ferdinand II. 
He had been brought up by the Jesuits and filled by them 
with their devotion to the Church. He was small and feeble, 
with hooked nose, weak eyes, and thin hair — plainly not 
the captain of men who shakes the world with his ambitions. 
Nevertheless, where his convictions were involved this frail 
sovereign proved himself more immovable than men of a 
more heroic aspect. Having made sure of the attachment 
to himself of all the Hapsburg dominions save Bohemia, he 
set out for Frankfurt', where the assembly of German electors 



And the Peace of Westphalia 209 

was convened, after the usual fashion, to name the successor 
of Matthias. Although three of the seven electors were 
Protestants, the electoral college so far accepted the time- 
honored ascendancy of the House of Hapsburg as to raise 
him to the imperial dignity. Having gained thus much, 
Ferdinand felt that he must strain every nerve to recover 
Bohemia. The case was rapidly becoming urgent, for 
almost at the same moment that he was acclaimed at 
Frankfurt, the Bohemian struggle had entered a new and 
more dangerous phase : the revolutionists had made an offer The Elector 

Frederick Lif*™ 

of the crown to the Elector Frederick. Frederick hesitated, C omes king of 
torn between anxiety and hope, but in the end, spurred on Bohemia > r6l 9 
by his ambition, set out for Prague, and on November 4, 
1 6 1 9, was crowned king. 

While making preparations for a vigorous campaign, Fer- Maximilian 
dinand approached the Catholic^ League for aid. This or- 
ganization, which was destined to play a very considerable 
role in the Thirty Years' War, was, in distinction from its 
rival, the Union, most_efficiently managed by its president, 
Maximilian, duke of Bavaria. Maximilian proved himself, 
in the course of the war, to be the most capable sovereign 
of Germany. He had been brought up, like Ferdinand, by 
the Jesuits, and shared the new emperor's devotion to the 
Church. He tempered that devotion, however, with a states- 
manship such as the imperial dreamer and bigot had no 
inkling of. From the moment of his accession he prepared 
for the coming crisis by laying up money and drilling an 
army. In the hard struggles of this world it is generally 
such men as Maximilian who succeed, men who exercise 
foresight and energetically carry through well-laid plans. 
Maximilian was thoroughly aroused over what he consid- 
ered the Elector Frederick's usurpation, and did not 
require much coaxing to put his forces at Ferdinand's - 
disposal. 

Hv #■ 

% V 



2IO 



The Thirty Years War 



The decisive 
Bohemian 
campaign of 
1620. 



In the year 1620 there followed the campaign which de 
cided the fate of Bohemia. Was the country to remain Prot- 
estant under its new king, Frederick, or to be won back by 
the Catholics and handed over to Ferdinand? If the Prot- 
estants had had a different champion, their outlook might 
have been more brilliant. Frederick was a man of little 
brains, and such spirit as he had was largely supplied by 
his wife. What made greatly against his chances was that 
politically he stood alone. The Union, in spite of his ap- 
peals, did next to nothing, while among the Lutherans one 
man, the powerful elector of Saxony, acted with Ferdinand. 
The forces of the League, under the command of General 
Tilly, penetrated into Bohemia until they came within sight 
of the towers of Prague. They found Frederick's army 
drawn up on the White Hill to the west of the town, and 
the ensuing battle was a crushing defeat for Frederick, who 
fled for his life. The Jesuits had mockingly foretold that 
he would prove but a winter king, a man of snow, vanish- 
ing at the first ray of the sun, and they were right. Fer- 
dinand, followed by an army of priests and Jesuits, took 
possession of Bohemia, confiscated the immense estates of 
the revolted nobles, and gradually forced the people back' 
to Catholicism. 



Seizure of the 
Palatinate. 



The Palatine Period (1621-23). 

The Bohemian episode was closed, and lovers of peace 
hoped that the war would now end. They were disap- 
pointed, for neither would the defeated Frederick give up his 
claims, nor could the elated Catholics resist the temptation 
to make the most of their victory. An entirely new cause of 
war was created when the emperor, egged on by his Jesuit 
advisers, deprived Frederick of his electoral title, and com- 
missioned Maximilian, together with his allies, the Span- 
iards, to take military possession of the Palatinate. This 



And the Peace of Westphalia 21 1 

looked dangerously like violence, especially as a Catholic 
army encamped among Protestants was sure to kindle fierce 
resentment. Frederick, with a little help from various quar- 
ters, made what resistance he could, but had to yield to the 
more disciplined troops of his adversaries. By the end of 
the year 1622 not a foot of his inherited states was in his 
possession. The emperor, victorious beyond his dreams, 
thought he could now dispose of the Palatinate as a con- 
quered province. He transferred (1623) the electoral dig- 
nity from Frederick to Maximilian, duke and henceforth 
elector of Bavaria, and still further rewarded his ally by 
conferring upon him a part of the Palatine territory (the 
Upper Palatinate). 

Meanwhile, Protestant Europe had watched with alarm Alarm of 
the progress of the Catholic arms. The tie of religion was Europe?" 1 " 
still so close that various Protestant powers, England, Hol- 
land, Sweden, and Denmark, began to discuss possible meas- 
ures for the relief of their German brethren. The leader- 
ship in any such concerted action would naturally fall to 
England, not only because England under Elizabeth had 
stepped to the front of the Protestant world, but also be- 
cause the reigning English sovereign, James I., was the 
father-in-law of Frederick of the Palatinate, husband of the 
fair and ambitious Princess Elizabeth. James, to be sure, 
had counselled against the Bohemian adventure because he 
had an unreasoning aversion to rebellion, but when Fred- 
erick lost the Palatinate, too, he could not refuse to bestir 
himself in his cause. He began with the idea that an ami- 
cable adjustment was possible through the combined inter- 
vention in Germany of England and Spain, and planned 
in furtherance of this policy, a marriage alliance with the 
Spanish House. But the Spaniards negotiated only to gain 
time, waited till the Palatinate was safe in the emperor's 
hands, and then raised the price of their friendship. Hence- 



212 



The Thirty Years War 



Failure of 
James of 
England's pro- 
jected Protes- 
tant alliance. 



forth James breathed war and planned a great alliance to 
wrest the Palatinate from the Catholics by force. Here, 
too, ill luck pursued him. The Dutch had in 1609 signed 
a truce with the Spaniards which had just (1621) expired. 
The renewed war with their old tyrants fully occupied their 
energies. Sweden, ruled by Gustavus Adolphus, listened, 
but proposed a plan that was not to James's liking. Be- 
sides, Gustavus had troubles with Russia and Poland, 
which seemed as much of a load as his shoulders could bear 
for the time being. There remained Denmark, and James 
signed a treaty with the king of that country, Christian IV., 
by which England promised to supply him with money in 
case he headed a Protestant attack. Mindful of the enmity 
between Hapsburg and Bourbon, James even approached 
France, and France, though a Catholic country, was willing 
to lend a hand; but unfortunately the Huguenot embers still 
smouldered, and Richelieu, who had just then acquired a 
dominant influence (1624), with characteristic caution re- 
solved to attend first to matters at home. Before long 
England itself was paralyzed by domestic troubles, for 
James rashly involved himself in that quarrel with his peo- 
ple which led later to the great civil war, and which for the 
moment left him without funds, since his angry Parliament 
would put no money in his hands. The upshot of the 
vaunted European alliance was that the Danish king took 
up the war against the emperor single-handed, without so 
much as getting the promised money help from England. 



Christian con- 
fronted by 
Tilly and 
Wallenstein. 



The Danish War (1625-29). 
With the entrance of Christian IV. into the war, the scene 
of action was transferred from the south to the north. Tilly, 
who still commanded the army of the League, moved against 
him, but Christian at first had the advantage of position 
and numbers. Just as he thought he had the situation 



And the Peace of Westphalia 213 

in hand, a second Catholic army appeared and threatened 
his flank. Raised in the name of the emperor, this force Wallenstein 
was really the first imperial army put forward in this war — JnTperfaf army. 
Tilly, it must always be remembered, was employed by the 
League — and was commanded by Wallenstein. Wallen- 
stein was a Bohemian nobleman, who had remained true to 
Ferdinand, and who had been rewarded with immense es- 
tates taken from the defeated rebels. In order to make his 
master independent of the League, he had counselled him to 
raise an army of his own, and when the emperor pleaded 
poverty, Wallenstein lured him on with a plan by which 
the army should be self-supporting. The imperial general 
would simply oblige the magistrates of the districts which the 
army happened to be occupying, to furnish him with the 
supplies and ready money of which he stood in need. Such 
a system of forced contributions was not exactly plunder, 
but it was the next thing to it, and without urgent necessity 
the meek Ferdinand would never have given his consent to 
anything so irregular. Wallenstein at first exercised some 
restraint upon his men, but as the country grew poorer, it 
became harder and harder to squeeze support out of it, until 
the general was obliged to take whatever he could find. 
Naturally, his rivals were not slow in imitating him, with the 
result that there now began that awful harrying of Germany, 
the cold facts of which remain incredible to our ears and con- 
firm the saying of a famous American general that war is 
hell. And this was only the beginning, for there were des- 
tined to be twenty and more years of this slow torture. A 
French historian has declared the fact that Germany did not 
become an out-and-out wilderness, one of the most extraor- 
dinary examples of endurance which humanity has furnished. 

A word concerning the armies of this age will not come The organiza- 
amiss here. To begin with, they were not national but a° m y^ 
mercenary. A sovereign, wishing to raise a force, com- 



214 



The Thirty Years' War 



The order 
of battle. 



Christian de- 
feated by 
Tilly and 
Wallenstein. 



The Peace of 
Liibeck, 1629. 



missioned a number of officers, who hired men at a fixed 
price wherever they were to be found. In consequence, an 
army was likely to look more like an international congress 
than anything else — all races, costumes, and languages were" 
represented. The pay of both officers and privates was 
high, and an army cost, at least in salaries, relatively much 
more than to-day. A well-balanced force would be com- 
posed of infantry and cavalry in about equal numbers, the 
artillery being as yet a factor of_.no. great account. The 
infantry was in part armed with rude muskets, but owing to 
the fact that a general still counted on winning a battle by 
the push of solidly massed squares, the more usual weapon of 
the foot-soldier was a pike, some eighteen feet in length. In 
preparation for a battle the cavalry was drawn up on the 
wings, while the infantry, with the clumsy and ineffective 
artillery corps in front of it, held the centre. All this looks 
rude and primitive from the twentieth century point of view, 
but it remains a noticeable fact that the modern science of 
war took its first infantile steps in this period, chiefly under 
the stimulus of Gustavus Adolphus. He increased his ar- 
tillery pieces, turned them to better use, and developed in his 
troops a greater mobility both on the march and under fire. 
And now to return to the Danish War. Christian IV. 
was no match for the forces of Tilly and Wallenstein. A 
single campaign settled his fate. In 1626 Wallenstein de- 
feated his lieutenant Mansfeld at the Bridge of Dessau, and 
in the same year Tilly crushed Christian himself at Lutter. 
Not only was Christian obliged to retire from Germany, but 
he was pursued into his own dominions, and had finally to 
take refuge in the Danish islands. He had every reason to 
be thankful when, in the year 1629, the emperor signed the 
Peace of Liibeck with him, whereby, in return for the 
promise not to meddle again in German affairs, he got back 
his Danish territories. 



And the Peace of Westphalia 215 

Even before the Peace of Liibeck was signed, Wallenstein The revolu- 
had overrun the whole Protestant north. Nothing seemed oTwallenstein. 
able to resist him. Capable, unscrupulous, and am^ftious — 
the type of the military adventurer — his remarkable mind 
began to nurse designs so vast and intricate that they have 
never yet been entirely fathomed. In the main his plan 
appears to have been to establish the supremacy of the em- 
peror by overawing the princes, both Catholic and Prot- 
estant. As such a revolution in the German system could 
be effected only by means of the army, of which he was 
head, he foresaw that the really dominant role in reunited 
Germany would be secured to him. But the plan was 
bound to encounter powerful obstacles. In the first place 
Ferdinand soon showed that he had no taste for the part 
of conqueror which Wallenstein assigned to him, and, fur- 
ther, all the princes, regardless of religion, arraigned them- 
selves against the man who tried to diminish their im- 
portance. 

If we survey the German situation in the year 1629, the Zenith of 

Catholic success seemed to be complete. In the Bohemian triumph and 

and Palatine stages of the war the Union had been scattered Edict of Restl 
tution, 1629. 

and south Germany occupied, while in the Danish stage, 
the victorious Catholic soldiery had penetrated to the shores 
of the North and Baltic Seas. In the length and breadth 
of Germany there was no force to resist the emperor and 
League, who thought they might now safely level a decisive 
blow at the Protestant religion. In March, 1629, Ferdinand 
published the Edict of Restitution, by which the Protestants 
were dispossessed of all Church territories seized by them 
since the Peace of Augsburg, signed three-quarters of a cen- 
tury before. The measure was a revolution. At a stroke 
of the pen two archbishoprics, twelve bishoprics, and hun- 
dreds of monasteries passed, without regard to the wishes 
of the people, back into Catholic hands. The emperor had 



2l6 



The Thirty Years War 



Imperial in- 
consistency. 
Wallenstein 
dismissed, 
1630. 



hitherto cajoled the Lutherans in order to keep them quiet 
while he crushed the more radical Protestants, but by this 
step he removed the mask. It was not Calvinism which he 
hated, but Protestantism of every variety. The Edict of 
Restitution is the high -water mark of Catholic success. 

The policy laid down in the Edict of Restitution meant 
violence perpetrated upon every Protestant community in the 
land, and could be carried through only by an army. But 
almost simultaneously with its adoption the emperor was 
guilty of the fatal inconsistency of weakening his forces. In 
the year 1630 a Diet was held at Ratisbon (Regensburg) . 
Here the long-pent-up opposition to Wallenstein found a 
voice. His misdemeanors were enumerated: his army ex- 
hausted the country, weighing on Catholic and Protestant 
alike, his imperial plans were revolutionary, and his personal 
ambition dangerous and boundless. A unanimous cry went 
up for his dismissal, which the timid emperor could not face. 
He deprived Wallenstein of his command at the very moment 
when the Edict of Restitution for the first time united Prot- 
estant opposition against him, and when a new power ap- 
peared on the scene to give a new turn to the war. 



Gustavus 
Adolphus 
lands in Ger- 
many, July, 
1630. 



The Swedish Period (1630-35). 
In July, 1630, Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, 
landed on the Baltic coast at the head of an army. We have 
seen that some years before, when James I. of England at- 
tempted to create a great Protestant combination, Gustavus 
had declined to take a hand in it. He was at the time en- 
gaged in securing his position on the Baltic against the Poles. 
Since then Wallenstein's astonishing triumph in the north 
had filled the mind of the Swedish king with not a little 
alarm. He held the ambition of securing for himself the first 
place on the Baltic, of making, in fact, the Baltic a kind of 
Swedish lake, and here was Wallenstein apparently reviving 



And the Peace of Westphalia 217 

the defunct Empire, carrying its banners into the north, and 
talking of launching a fleet upon the sea. Concerned about 
his safety, he resolved to enter the war for the purpose of 
driving the imperial forces out of northern Germany. But 
there was more than this in the bold enterprise of Gustavus. 
As an ardent Protestant he had sympathized from the first 
with the Protestants of Germany, but not till the publica- 
tion of the Edict of Restitution did he feel that unless a blow 
were struck for it, Protestantism in Germany was doomed. 
Thus Swedish patriotism as well as love of religion spurred 
him to action. Did he act selfishly or unselfishly? An idle 
question the present writer thinks, since human actions can- 
not often be classified under such simple categories as good 
and bad, selfish and unselfish. Naturally, he acted as was 
demanded by his conception of the interests of Sweden. To 
have done otherwise would have been a disavowal of his re- 
sponsibilities as head of the nation. But it was perfectly 
compatible with a national policy to entertain also a love of 
the Protestant religion. At any rate, although he penetrated 
into Germany as a conqueror, he rescued German Protes- 
tantism from destruction, and has ever since been sung 
and idolized by the Protestants of Germany, who have not 
hesitated to associate his name with that of Luther. 

Gustavus is the greatest figure of the Thirty Years' War, Gustavus and 
and succeeded during his brief presence on the stage in bring- pr i nC es. 
ing into the barren struggle something of an epic movement. 
Let us follow his brilliant course. His first concern on land- 
ing in Germany was to secure the alliance of the Protestant 
princes, for their salvation, together with the safety of his 
Swedish kingdom, formed the double object of his coming. 
But here he encountered his first difficulties. The Protes- 
tant princes had, on account of the Edict of Restitution, lit- 
tle or no affection left for the emperor, but they hesitated 
about allying themselves with a foreigner and aiding him in 



218 The Thirty Years War 

getting a foothold in their native land. While Gustavus was 
in turn coaxing and threatening them, help came to him from 
another quarter. We have remarked that France, from an- 
cient enmity against the Hapsburgs, had followed the Ger- 
man war with interest, but had been unable to interfere, ow- 
ing to troubles with the Huguenots. By 1629 these troubles 
were dispelled, and Richelieu was free to follow a more vig- 
orous foreign policy. His point of view was entirely un- 
trammelled by religious considerations, being determined 
exclusively by his conception of the interests of his country. 
Imbued with the idea that the thing needful was to hinder 
the formation of a strong power to the east of France, he 
welcomed with open arms every enemy of the emperor. 
Alliance be- Gustavus could from the first count on his good-will, which 
and France, i n January, 1 63 1, took the substantial form of an alliance — • 
l631, the Treaty of Barwalde — wherein France agreed to pay the 

king of Sweden a considerable annual subsidy toward the 
prosecution of the war. With characteristic caution Riche- 
lieu would go no further for the present. 

The first operations of Gustavus were directed to the re- 
duction of the strongholds of Pomerania for the purpose of 
Sack of acquiring a secure base for his campaign. While he was thus 

May, 1631? en g a g e d, Tilly, who since Wallenstein's dismissal was at the 
head of the combined forces of the League and emperor, 
stormed and utterly sacked the great Protestant city of 
Magdeburg. The horror of the terrible massacre was 
heightened by the fact that the inhabitants, in their despair, 
themselves set fire to their town in order to bury themselves 
in its ashes. When the smoke and fury had passed, the cathe- 
dral alone was seen solemnly towering over the ruins. This 
deed turned Protestant sentiment more strongly than ever to- 
ward Gustavus, and when, shortly after, Tilly wantonly in- 
vaded Saxony, the elector of Saxony, the greatest of the Prot- 
estant princes, put an end to his indecision. Together with 



And the Peace of Westphalia 219 

the elector of Brandenburg, and followed by many minor Saxony and 
princes, he entered into an alliance with Sweden, which so j i n Swedec? 
far secured the hold of Gustavus on the north that he was 
able to seek out Tilly for a decisive encounter. In Sep- 
tember, 163 1, a great battle took place at Breitenfeld/ 
near Leipsic, in which Swedish generalship and discipline 
astonished the world by utterly defeating the veteran army 
of Tilly. 

The victory of Breitenfeld laid all Germany at the feet of Gustavus 
Gustavus. Never was there a more dramatic change. The quarters^n 
Catholics, who a year before had held the reins in their hands, the Rnine - 
were now in exactly the same helpless position in which 
the Protestants had found themselves. Gustavus, received 
everywhere as a deliverer by the Protestants, marched with- 
out opposition straight across Germany to the Rhine. In the 
episcopal town of Mainz he took up his winter quarters. 
What more natural than that in the presence of a triumph 
exceeding all expectations, his plans should now have soared 
higher? With Sweden safe and German Protestantism res- 
cued, his expedition had secured its original objects. But 
as he looked around and saw Germany helpless at his feet, 
visions arose of himself as the permanent champion and 
head of the Protestant section of the German people. The 
ambition was tempting, but before he could give it a precise 
form there was practical work to do. As long as Bavaria 
and the Hapsburg lands were unconquered, he could not 
hope to be unquestioned arbiter in Germany. 

In the spring of 1632 he again took the field, aiming Gustavus in 
straight at the country of his enemies. At the river Lech, spring, 3 ^* 
Tilly opposed him. with the remnant of his forces, only to 
have them annihilated and be himself killed. Therewith 
Bavaria was at the great Swede's mercy, who now entered 
its capital, Munich, in triumph. His next objective, nat- 
urally, was Vienna and the emperor. If he could enter 



220 



The Thirty Years' War 



Wallenstein. 



The battle of 
Liitzen, No- 
vember 1 6, 
1632. 



Death of 
Gustavus. 



Degeneration 
of the war on 
the death of 
Gustavus. 



Vienna, opposition would be crushed and all Germany would 
become his prize. In this critical situation Ferdinand turned 
to the one man who seemed capable of averting the final 
doom — Wallenstein. That general, since his dismissal, had 
been sulking on his estates. When Ferdinand's ambassador 
besought him for aid, he affected indifference, but at length 
allowed himself to be persuaded to collect an army upon 
condition that he should be given unlimited control. As 
soon as the famous leader floated his standards to the 
wind, the mercenary soldiery gathered round them. 

In the summer of 1632 Wallenstein and Gustavus, the 
two greatest generals of their day, took the field against 
each other. After long, futile manoeuvring around Nurem- 
berg, the two armies met for a decisive encounter at Liitzen, 
not far from Leipsic (November, 1632). After the trumpet- 
ers had sounded the hymn of Luther, "A Mighty Fortress 
is our God," and the whole army had knelt in prayer, 
Gustavus ordered the attack. The combat was long and 
fierce, but the Swedes won the day; they won, but at a 
terrible cost. In one of the charges of horse, the impetuosity 
of Gustavus had carried him too far into the ranks of the 
enemy, and he was surrounded and slain. 

With the death of the king of Sweden all higher inter- 
est vanishes from the war. His great achievement had 
been this: he had saved the cause of Protestantism in Ger- 
many; that is, he had saved a cause which, however narrow 
and unattractive in some of its manifestations, was an im- 
portant link in the movement of human freedom. But he 
left Germany in hopeless confusion. The rage between 
Protestants and Catholics, now almost unappeasable, was 
complicated by the territorial greed of the princes, and as if 
such misery were not enough, foreign powers took advan- 
tage of the impotence of the nation to appropriate some 
of its fairest provinces. 



And the Peace of Westphalia 221 

On the death of Gustavus, Wallenstein was the great figure Wallenstein's 
among the leaders of the war, and Wallenstein, a man not death, Febru- 
without large views, resolved to strive for a general pacifica- ary ' l6 34- 
tion on the basis of toleration for the Protestants. As he 
felt that he could never win the emperor and his Jesuit 
councillors to such a plan, he proceeded secretly, and thus 
laid himself open to the suspicion of treason. If his army- 
would have followed him through thick and thin, he might 
have defied the emperor, but some loyal colonels, shocked 
at the idea of turning against the head of the state, formed 
a conspiracy against their general, and in February, 1634, 
murdered him in the town of Eger, before he had effected 
any change in the situation. 

Meanwhile, the Swedes were doing their best to retain the Swedish in- 
extraordinary position which Gustavus had won for them, directed by 
The political direction fell into the hands of the Chancellor ° xenstiern 
Oxenstiern, who ruled in the name of Gustavus's infant 
daughter Christina, while the military affairs were on the 
whole very creditably managed by various generals whom 
Gustavus had trained. But in 1634 the Swedes were sig- 
nally defeated by the Imperialists at Nordlingen and had 
to evacuate southern Germany. With fortune smiling once 
more on the emperor, he resolved to take a really sincere 
step toward peace. Calamity had taught him to moderate The emperor 
his demands, and he declared to the elector of Saxony his withthe ermS 
willingness to sign with him a treaty of peace, to which all £ lector of , 
Protestants should be invited to accede, on the basis of a 
virtual withdrawal of the obnoxious Edict of Restitution. 
The proposition was formally accepted at Prague in May, 
1635, and such was the longing for peace, that it was wel- 
comed, in spite of its shortcomings, by nearly all the 
princes of Germany. If Germany had been left to itself, 
peace might now have descended upon the harried land, but, 
unfortunately, the decision between peace and war had by 



222 



The Thirty Years' War 



this time passed out of German hands and now lay with 
those foreigners whom the division of the Germans had 
drawn across the border. It was too late in the day to bid 
Sweden be gone, especially as France, after having con- 
tented itself thus far with granting Sweden money aid, now 
entered the struggle as a principal. The favorable hour ; 
which Richelieu had patiently awaited, had struck at last. 
The battle of Nordlingen, followed by the Peace of Prague, 
had left the Swedes so weak and isolated that they made 
a frightened appeal to France. Richelieu strengthened the 
alliance with them and sent a French army into the field. 
Therewith the war had entered a new phase. 



Richelieu in 
alliance with 
Sweden and 
the Dutch 
against the 
two branches 
of Hapsburg. 



The French 
and Swedish 
plan of cam- 
paign. 



The French Period, (1635-48). 

From now on the war was an attempt on the part of the 
allies, Protestant Sweden and Catholic France, to effect a 
permanent lodgment in Germany. The word religion was 
still bandied about, but it had no longer any meaning. 
Richelieu's opportunity to weaken the House of Hapsburg 
had come, for which reason, while he attacked it in Germany, 
he resolved also to face that branch of it established in Spaim 
The Spanish Hapsburgs were at that time involved with the 
Dutch Republic, the old struggle having been renewed in 
1 62 1. In the very year (1635) in which Richelieu entered 
the German war, he formed a close union with the Dutch 
and declared war against Spain. Thus the leading aspect of 
the Thirty Years' War in its last phase is that of an immense 
international struggle of the two Houses of Hapsburg and 
their friends against the House of Bourbon and such allies 
as it could muster. 

The German campaigns of the French Period consist of 
a patient forward thrust across the Rhine on the part of 
Fiance, and a steady movement southward from the Baltic 



And the Peace of Westphalia 223 

on the part of Sweden. The object of the allies was tc 
crush the emperor between them. It remains a matter of 
astonishment that that sovereign, exhausted as he was and 
ill-supported by the German people, who had fallen into a 
mortal languor, should have made so stubborn a resistance. 
In the early years he even won some notable successes. But 
year after year the French and Swedes fastened upon his 
flanks and with each season he found it more difficult to 
shake them off. The nation meanwhile, sucked dry by a 
soldiery which had grown insensible to every appeal of justice 
and pity, was dying by inches. The cities fell into decay, The long 
the country became a desert. In view of the certainty that Germany, 
the product of labor would become the booty of marauders, 
nobody cared to work. So the people fell into idleness, 
were butchered, or died of hunger or of pestilence. The 
only profession which afforded security and a livelihood was 
that of the soldier, and soldier meant robber and murderer. 
Armies, therefore, became mere bands organized for pillage, 
and marched up and down the country, followed by immense 
hordes of starved camp-followers, women and children, who 
hoped, in this way, to get a sustenance which they could not 
find at home. 

Accumulated disaster finally brought the emperor to terms. French and 
The forces of France had been growing gradually stronger tor j es bring 
and stronger, and under the leadership of the fiery prince [o e te e ^ eror 
of Conde and the gifted strategist Turenne penetrated far 
into southern Germany. The honors of the last campaigns 
rested entirely with them. The emperor saw that it was 
useless to attempt to turn these strangers from the gates, 
and accepted the decree of fate. But it was not Ferdi- 
nand II. who bared his head to receive the blow. He 
had been succeeded, on his. death in 1637, by his son, 
Ferdinand III. (1637-57), who opened negotiations with 
France and Sweden, and after wearisome delays, brought 



224 



The Thirty Years War 



The main sub- 
heads of the 
Peace of 
Westphalia. 



Cessions made 
to Sweden 
and France. 



Dispute about 
Church lands 
settled in 
favor of the 
Protestants. 



them to a successful termination in 1648, in the Treaty of 
Westphalia. 1 

T he Pea ce of Westphalia is, from the variety of matter 
which it treats, one of the most important documents in 
history. First, it determined what territorial compensa- 
tion France and Sweden were to have in Germany foi 
their victories over the emperor; second, it laid a new basis 
for the peace between Protestants and Catholics; and third, 
it authorized an important political readjustment of Ger. 
many. All these points will be considered separately. 

As to the first point, Sweden received the western half 
of Pomerania, and the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden. 
By these possessions she was put in control of the mouths of 
the rivers Oder, Elbe, and Weser, and therewith of a good 
part of the ocean commerce of Germany. France was con- . 
firmed in the possession of the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and 
Verdun, which she had acquired under Henry II. (1552), 
and received, in addition, Alsace, securing therewith a foot- 
hold on the upper Rhine. The free city of Strasburg, how- 
ever, was expressly excluded from this cession. 

Turning to the second head, the great question was how 
to settle the seizures of Church property which the Prot- 
estants had made since the Peace of Augsburg. The Catho- 
lics, it will be remembered, had always held that these 
seizures were illegal, and by the Edict of Restitution of 
1629 the emperor had ordered their surrender to the Ro- 
man Church. In the peace negotiations the Protestants de- 
manded that their brethren in the faith be restored to all the 
possessions which they held in 1618, the year when the war 
broke out, but they compromised at last on the year 1624. 
Whatever was in Protestant hands on the first of January of 



1 The Peace of Westphalia receives, its name from the province of West- 
phalia on the Rhine, embracing the two cities of Miinster and Osnabrtick, 
in which the plenipotentiaries of the powers met. 




{"•—•■*s 



And the Peace of Westphalia 225 

that year was to remain Protestant; what was in Catholic 
hands was to be reserved to the Catholics. This settled the 
question of the disputed lands in the main in the Protestant 
interest, but involved a concession to the emperor in so far 
as it sacrificed Bohemia to Catholicism. Concerning Cal- 
vinism no further difficulty was made, for the faith was put, 
in the eyes of the law, on the same footing as Lutheranism. 

Under the third head it is necessary to note a variety Political dis- 
of political and territorial changes within Germany. First, Gennany. 
the princes were given a number of new sovereign rights, 
among others the right of forming alliances with each 
other and with foreign powers. Therewith the decentral- 
ization of Germany was completed, and the single states 
made as good as independent. If the emperor was weak 
before, he was now no more than the honorary president 
of a congress of sovereign powers. Of three of these con- 
stituent states of the Empire, the Palatinate, Bavaria, and 
Brandenburg, a word remains to be said. The Palatinate, The 
which the emperor had confiscated in the early stages of aa nae ' 
the war, was restored in a mutilated condition to the son 
of the elector and winter king of Bohemia, Frederick. At 
the same time this son was recognized as the eighth elector, 
for the dignity which had been transferred to the duke of 
Bavaria was not restored. Bavaria, under its elector, Max- Bavaria, 
imilian, had played the most effective part of any Ger- 
man principality in the war, and its increase in power was 
in strict accordance with merit. From this on Bavaria 
aspired to the leadership in southern Germany, while 
the leadership of northern Germany was, as a result of the 
Peace of Westphalia, practically secured to the elector of 
Brandenburg. Brandenburg received additions of territory Brandenburg. 
— eastern Pomerania and four bishoprics — constituting a' 
possession so considerable as to enable it to replace Saxony 
at the head of Protestant Germany and to give it a position 



226 



The Thirty Years' War 



Switzerland 
and the 
Netherlands. 



Effect of the 
war on Ger- 



many. 



second only to that of Austria. From this on the rebirth of 
Germany would depend on the ability of some one prince or 
line of princes to accomplish the task of unification wherein 
the emperor had failed. The fate ruling nations assigned 
this task to the House of Brandenburg, which achieved it 
by steps forming henceforth the leading interest of German 
history. 

As a last curious detail it may be added that Switzerland 
and the Dutch Netherlands (Seven United Provinces), which 
had once been members of the Empire, but had long ago 
won a practical independence, were formally declared sov- 
ereign and free from any obligations to that body. 

Germany, after her insufferable crisis, lay insensible and 
exhausted. Perhaps the contemporary stories of the ruin 
done by the war are exaggerated; in any case it is certain 
that the country took more than a hundred years to recover 
from its disasters. In some respects it did not recover 
till the nineteenth century. The simple fact is, that the 
material edifice of civilization, together with most of the 
moral and intellectual savings of an ancient society, had been 
destroyed, and what was left was barbarism. The genera- 
tion which survived the war had grown up without schools, 
almost without pastors and churches, and to its mental and 
moral deadness it added, owing to the long rule of force, a 
disdain for all simple and honest occupations. Respecting 
the disaster wrought by the war, figures help us to realize 
the terrible situation. Augsburg, the great southern centre 
of trade, had had 80,000 inhabitants; the war reduced the 
city to a provincial town of 16,000. Thousands of villages 
were destroyed, whole districts were depopulated. In Bran- 
denburg one could travel days without meeting a peasant; 
in Saxony bands of wolves took possession of the empty 
villages. In general, the population of Germany fell from 
one-half to one-third of the numbers before the war. 



And the Peace of Westphalia 227 

The Peace of Westphalia dealt with so many matters, not The Peace of 
only of German but also of international interest, that it c i e s s ei ?the ia 

may be looked upon as the basis of European public law period of re- 

J r __ _ r r ligious wars. 

till the French Revolution. ~" We may also take it to mark 

a turning-point in the destinies of civilization. From the 
time of Luther the chief interest of Europe had been the 
question of religion. Europe was divided into two camps, 
Catholicism and Protestantism, which opposed each other 
with all their might. In the Peace of Westphalia the two 
parties recorded what they had gradually been learning — 
which was, that such a fight was futile, and that it was the 
part of wisdom to put up with each other. Almost imper- 
ceptibly men's minds had grown more tolerant, even if the 
laws were not always so, and this is, when all is said, the more 
satisfactory progress. The best proof of the improved state 
of the European mind toward the middle of the seventeenth 
century is offered by the practical application of this very 
peace instrument. The toleration there granted was merely The principle 
of the old kind — each prince could settle the religion of his 
principality without any obligation of tolerating dissidents — 
yet, persecution of individuals was henceforth the exception, 
and not the rule. It would be an exaggeration to say that the 
principle of toleration had now been conquered for humanity, 
or that the squabbles for religion's sake ceased in the world, 
but it may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that 
toleration had won with the Peace of Westphalia a definite 
recognition among the cultured classes. During the next 
one hundred and fifty years the principle filtered gradually, 
through the literary labor of many noble thinkers, to the 
lowest strata of society, and became in the era of the French 
Revolution a possession of all mankind. 



PART II 
THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 



CHAPTER XI 

THE STUARTS AND THE PURITAN REVOLUTION 

References: Gardiner, Student's History of England, pp. 
481-649; Gardiner, The Puritan Revolution (Epochs); 
Green, Short History of the English People, Chapters 
VIII., IX.; Terry, History of England, pp. 618-805; 
Gardiner, History of England from the Accession of 
James I. to the Civil War (1603-42), 10 vols, (this, 
with the two subsequent works, is the leading contri- 
bution to our knowledge of the period) ; Gardiner, His- 
tory of the Civil War (1642-49), 4 vols.; Gardiner, 
History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate 
(1649-60), 4 vols.; Gardiner, Oliver Cromwell; Firth, 
Oliver Cromwell; Morley, Oliver Cromwell; Carlyle, 
Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; Airy, English Res- 
toration and Louis XIV.; Traill, Social England, Vol. 
IV. (general information on English society). 

Source Readings : Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of 
the Puritan Revolution (1625-60) (contains all the im- 
portant documents of the period); Gee and Hardy, 
Documents Illustrative of English Church History; 
Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, Nos. 181-238; 
Colby, Selections from the Sources, Part VI.; Pepys, 
Diary, 4 vols. (ed. Braybrooke); Evelyn, Diary, 4 vols, 
(ed. Bray) (this, as well as Pepys's work, gives a vivid 
impression of the time) ; Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., 
Chapter XXX. 

When Elizabeth died in March, 1603, she was succeeded The Scottish 
by the son of Mary Stuart, who had been king of Scotland k j„| of Eng? 
almost from his birth under the name of James VI., and fig- land - 
ures among English monarchs as the first of that name. 

231 i 



232 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



Character of 
James. 



His concep- 
tion of his 
office. 



This accession opened the prospect of an effective union be- 
tween England and Scotland, which a few far-sighted states- 
men had long advocated. However, the plan encountered 
opposition. So deep-rooted were the long-standing antag- 
onisms and jealousies of the two nations that they refused 
to consolidate their institutions and fortunes, though James 
himself gave his ardent adhesion to the plan. In conse- 
quence, Scotland kept its own Parliament and officials, and 
the accession of James did nothing more for the present than 
give England and Scotland a common sovereign. 

It was unfortunate that at a time when the sovereign exer- 
cised enormous power the crown should have descended to 
such a man as James. He had an ungainly figure, a shuf- 
fling gait, distasteful personal habits, and was obstinate, 
weak, and cowardly. A person less royal to look upon had 
not sat upon the English throne in many a century. He had 
crammed himself with a considerable stock of knowledge, 
which had not matured into wisdom, and which he prided 
himself on exhibiting upon every occasion in order to hear 
himself acclaimed by the flattering courtiers as the British 
Solomon. His display of pedantic information brought 
down upon him from Henry IV. of France the remark that 
he was the wisest fool of Christendom. 

All this would have merely exposed him to more or less 
amiable ridicule if he had not made himself really dangerous 
by holding the most exaggerated idea of his royal office. It 
was he who first carried into English politics the theory of 
the Divine Right of kings. The English Constitution, which 
had grown from the seed of Magna Charta, vested the gov- 
ernment of the realm in king and Parliament. Such was 
the system at the end of the War of the Roses. During the 
Tudor Period the Parliament had been eclipsed by the king 
but was by no means abolished. Its rights, which were 
partly in abeyance, might be reassumed, and probably would 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 233 

be at the moment when the sovereign wantonly provoked 
the nation. And that was exactly what James did. Not 
content with the substance of absolutism, which he inherited 
from the Tudors, he desired also the name of it, and asserted 
his claims in terms so boundless that he seemed almost to be 
making a business of rousing opposition. On one occasion 
he edified his hearers with the following typical pronounce- 
ment: "It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God 
can do; ... so it is presumption and high contempt in a 
subject to dispute what a king can do, or say that a king 
cannot do this or that." The Tudors, as has been said, 
held a similar theory, but they came at the time of a great 
national crisis and acted in the main in close harmony with 
the people. If James undertook to act against the people 
and their real or supposed interests, he might find his position 
challenged, and drive the nation to take refuge in the older 
conception of monarchy which the Tudor absolutism had 
supplanted. This development James brought about, pre- 
cipitating thereby a struggle between himself and his people, 
based on two different conceptions of the English kingship. 

The accession of James occurred amid circumstances The foreign 
which augured a happy reign. The defeat of the Spanish situation at 
Armada had placed the independence of England beyond J an ^ es ' sac - 
question, and subsequent events had so weakened Spain as 
to remove all danger from that quarter. In consequence, 
James wisely inaugurated his rule by a favorable treaty of 
peace. In domestic affairs the great question was, What 
would be the attitude of James toward the Anglican Church, 
established by Elizabeth on the basis of the Acts of Suprem- 
acy and Uniformity (1559) ? At her death her creation had 
acquired an air of permanence. The Catholics were a wan- 
ing power, and the Puritans, who inclined toward Calvinistic 
views, called for only a few concessions, based chiefly on 
their aversion to the surplice, kneeling in service, and similar 



234 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

externals. It must be remembered that they were as yet 
very friendly to the national Church, accepted the religious 
headship of the sovereign and the Episcopal form of govern- 
ment, and merely believed in the simplification or purifica- 
tion, as they called it, of divine service. If James would 
know how to conciliate them, the religious troubles of Eng- 
land might be accounted as over. 
James and But James did not know how to conciliate them. Shortly 

after his accession in 1604 he called a conference at Hamp- 
ton Court for the purpose of discussing a document they had 
sent in, called the Millenary Petition, from the fact that a 
thousand clergymen were supposed to have adhered to it. 
Unfortunately, he lost his temper during the debate and 
flared up wildly against the Puritans. He declared that 
they were secret enemies of Episcopacy — which they were 
not — and affirmed with unnecessary emphasis that that 
system of Church government had his entire support. His 
personal venom becomes explicable when we remember that 
he had been brought up in Scotland, where he had made 
the acquaintance of the Presbyterian system, by which the 
Church was withdrawn from the control of the king and 
bishops and put in the hands of the ministers and the people. 
In England he was delighted by the discovery that the 
sovereign ruled the Church through the bishops, and was 
jealously on the lookout against the importation of Presby- 
terian ideas. The cause of the bishops he identified with 
his own cause, and formulated his belief in the epigrammatic 
assertion, "No bishop, no king." Now the Puritans were 
emphatically not Presbyterians, but because they advocated 
a few changes savoring of radicalism James chose to regard 
them as such. Acting on this assumption he dismissed the 
petitioners at Hampton Court gruffly, and shortly after 
ordered every clergyman who refused to meet exactly and 
literally the prescriptions of the Book of Common Praye* 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 235 

to be removed from his living. In this way the king made it 
clear that his manner of conciliating the Puritan opposition 
was to drive it from the Church. 

Toward the Catholics, whom James regarded with a tol- The gun 
erance much in advance of his time, he followed a temper- 1605. erp ' 
ate but unsuccessful policy. He began by holding out a 
prospect of lightening the burden of persecution, but when 
he failed to carry out his promises, owing to the pressure 
brought to bear upon him by his Protestant subjects, a 
group of desperate Catholics, enraged beyond endurance by 
the withdrawal of the one ray of hope which had shone upon 
them in many a day, planned to destroy the whole Protestant 
government, king, Lords, and Commons, by one gigantic 
stroke. They heaped gunpowder in barrels in the cellars 
beneath the House of Lords, and set November 5, 1605 — the 
day of the opening in state of a new session — for the mon- 
strous crime. Suspicion, however, had been awakened 
through a letter of warning sent by a conspirator to a relative 
who was a member of the upper house; and luckily, on the 
very eve of the planned disaster, Guy Fawkes, the hardiest 
of the conspirators, was discovered keeping watch among the 
explosives. He and his helpmates were hunted down and 
executed with all the barbarity characteristic of the period, 
and the English people were once more confirmed in that 
intense hatred and distrust of the Catholic faith which long 
remained the first article of their religious and political creed. 

Such was the relation of James to the religious question — James's second 
the ritualistic wing of the national Church was vigorously ^ e pa r f 
sustained, the Puritan or reform wing was opposed and liament - 
insulted, and the Catholics, not without a decent reluctance, 
were persecuted and crushed. However, the situation would 
not have become desperate, if James had not created a 
second difficulty by antagonizing his Parliament. To un- 
derstand the development of that conflict, we have but to 



236 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



The question 
of the finances. 



Impeachment 
of Bacon, 
J621. 



remember that to the practical absolutism of the Tudors, 
to which he had fallen heir, he wished to give the force of 
theory and of law. 

The quarrel began almost immediately. James needed 
money, partly for legitimate expenses, partly because he was 
extravagant. The required revenues had, of course, to be 
voted by Parliament, and if that body had been managed 
after the Tudor fashion, it would have granted supplies as 
readily as in the days of Henry or Elizabeth. But James's 
talk about a monarch being above the law had aroused sus- 
picion, and the Parliament delayed. The king, thereupon, 
in a huff, began to help himself by arbitrarily increasing the 
duty imposed on certain articles of import and export. 
This is called the question of the impositions. When a 
merchant named Bate refused to pay, he was arrested, tried, 
and sentenced by the judges. Thus James triumphed, but 
the victory only added a limited amount to his revenue, 
did not settle the financial difficulties, and exasperated the 
Parliament so greatly that it prepared to oppose every de- 
mand, reasonable or unreasonable, which the king might 
make. The result was that James dissolved one Parliament 
only to find its successor still more unwilling to bow to his 
dictation. Out of what was originally a simple matter of 
supplying revenue for the crown's outlay, had grown by 
James's mismanagement an issue, at the core of which was, 
as everybody began to see, the all-important question of 
who controlled the resources of the country, the king or the 
Parliament. From that to the question of which was the 
stronger of the two was but a step, and that step might 
mean war. 

Over this issue and others coupled with it James quar- 
relled with his Parliament throughout his reign, with the 
result of an increasing irritation on both sides. In the year 
162 1 the wrath of the Commons reached the point of a 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 237 

savage attack on the whole administration, culminating in 
the impeachment of the highest judge in the realm, the 
Lord Chancellor. This was none other than the philosopher 
Francis Bacon, one of the greatest Englishmen of that or any 
age. By taking fees from suitors while their cases were still 
pending before him, he had become technically guilty of 
bribery. His excuse was that the acceptance of gifts was a 
long-established custom of his office, but with the candor we 
might expect from such a soul, he avowed that the practice 
was indefensible. "I beseech your Lordships," he added, 
"to be merciful to a broken reed." Bacon was fined and dis- 
missed from office, the sentence being declared by himself 
"just, and for reformation's sake fit," but his disgrace would 
never have befallen him if he had not stood near the king, 
and the Parliament had not been set on reaching the mon- 
arch through his servants. 

Bacon's trial took the form of an impeachment, in itself an The revival 
ominous sign that the Parliament was raising its own claims men t. 
as the best answer to the king's attempt to exalt his position. 
Impeachment was a means by which, in earlier times, the 
Parliament had exercised control of the king's advisers, but 
which had become obsolete under the Tudors, when the 
humbled Parliament was obliged to abandon all influence 
upon the royal ministers. Its revival at this juncture meant 
that the Parliament was furbishing up the old weapons with 
which it had once held the monarchy in check. An im- 
peachment was a somewhat complicated process. The 
House of Commons appeared at the bar of the House of 
Lords to present to it the offender against the common- 
wealth, and the House of Lords, after listening to the charges, 
decided whether they were founded or unfounded and 
pronounced sentence accordingly. The bearing of the im- 
peachment of Bacon was not lost upon James, who vaguely 
divined that a serious Struggle was at hand. 



238 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

James's for- The unpopularity caused by his treatment of the Puritans 

eign po icy. ^^ ^ q Uarre i w j t ] a ^g p ar ii ame nt was increased by the 

foreign policy of James. We have remarked that almost 
immediately on his accession he had concluded peace with 
Spain. Not satisfied with this, he resolved to further the 
cause of religious peace in Europe by maintaining a close 
friendship with his late enemy. But such a policy, credit- 
able to his Christian temper, would depend for its success 
on Spain's willingness to meet him half-way. The test came 
in the year 16 18. In that year occurred the Bohemian 
incident, which led to the Thirty Years' War. James was 
interested in that famous struggle not only because Protes- 
tantism once more locked horns with Catholicism, but also 
more immediately because Frederick of the Palatinate, elect- 
ed king of the Protestant faction of Bohemia, had married 
his daughter Elizabeth. In spite of these circumstances, 
however, he permitted Frederick to be driven out of Bohemia, 
and only when Frederick was expelled from the Palatinate, 
too, was his father-in-law roused sufficiently to make a weak 
appeal to Spain for help. That power was delighted to find 
him so docile, made temporizing proposals, but was at heart 
too glad of the Catholic success in Germany to do anything 
to check it. 
Charles and Thus matters dragged on until the year 1623, when the 

iourney S to atn young and handsome duke of Buckingham, who was the 
king's all-powerful favorite, proposed to take a last step to 
bind Spain to England in a close alliance and to secure 
the settlement of the Palatinate difficulty without war. He 
developed the plan of a secret journey with Charles, the 
prince of Wales, to Madrid in order to take the Spanish 
court, as it were, by storm, persuade it to affiance the Spanish 
Infanta to the English heir, and cajole it into signing the 
desired treaty of alliance. It was a plan as hair-brained as 
it was impolitic, but James, teased and wheedled by the two 



ladrid. 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 239 

young men, at last gave his blessing to the enterprise. After 
many adventures Charles and Buckingham arrived at Ma- 
drid, but their reception was very different from what they 
had anticipated, and their hosts, although scrupulously po- 
lite, met them with evasion at every point. Utterly disgusted, 
they came back resolved to break with the useless policy of 
peace. James was plied till he consented to declare war 
against Spain, but died in March, 1625, before anything had 
been done. 

The reign of James opens a significant chapter in English American 
colonial history, for in 1607 the first permanent English 
settlement was planted in Virginia, and in 1620 the first 
band of radical Puritans, who had severed their connection 
with the Anglican Church and had at first taken refuge from 
persecution in Holland, set out across the Atlantic. From 
the valiant labor of these and subsequent bands of English- 
men who presently followed the Virginia and New England 
pioneers into the wildernesses of America, developed in 
time a number of prosperous colonies, the germs of that 
society which in the next century became the United States 
of America. Furthermore, in 161 2 the East India Com- India, 
pany, which had been chartered under Elizabeth, secured 
its first foothold in India. Thus, as soon as the victories of 
Elizabeth's reign had cleared the way, the Anglo-Saxon race 
planted the seeds of its expansion in the east and west, and 
laid the foundations of the English commercial supremacy 
of our day. 

Reign of Charles I. (1625-49). 

Charles I., who succeeded James in the year 1625, was Charles I. 
outwardly very unlike his father. His face, familiar to us 
from Van Dyck's frequent reproductions, was handsome 
and his manner kingly. Unfortunately he was liberally 
endowed with the Stuart traits of perversity and obsti- 



240 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



Charles con- 
tinues to an- 
tagonize 
Puritans and 
Parliament. 



The rising 
tide of Prot- 
estant fervor. 



The party 
cleavage. 



nacy and shared his father's exaggerated views of the royal 
prerogative. 

The two main difficulties created by James bore im- 
mediate and dangerous fruit in the new reign. James had 
roused the slumbering Puritanism of his subjects, and had 
raised the question with his Parliament as to who controlled 
taxation. Charles, by persisting in James's course of hostil- 
ity to Puritans and Parliament, succeeded in an incredibly 
short time in developing the prejudices of his people into a 
violent opposition to himself, and in arousing the Commons, 
who had been servilely docile under Elizabeth and, even 
while protesting, had been deeply respectful under James, to 
the point where they plainly put the question: Who was 
sovereign in England, Parliament or king? 

Shortly after his accession Charles married Henrietta 
Maria, a sister of Louis XIII. of France. This marriage 
with a Catholic was extremely unpopular in England, and 
was rendered doubly so by the suspicion, only too well 
founded, that Charles had entered upon an agreement with 
Louis to offer the English Catholics his protection. When 
Parliament assembled, it showed immediately signs of restless- 
ness, and presently grew still more excited on becoming aware 
that a small party of churchmen, closely associated with the 
court, were advocating views that seemed to savor of Ro- 
manism. These men were extreme ritualists^ and were not 
favorable to Calvinistic views, being especially inclined to 
question the great doctrine of predestination. The king, 
by natural preference, supported them; and they, to show 
their gratitude, gave their adhesion to his theory of the royal 
prerogative. To the Puritans, who were falling into the 
usual exaggerations of party passion, such an association 
looked much like the alliance of popery and tyranny. They 
maintained with some justice that the Church of England 
had in doctrine held so far to a moderate Calvinism, and 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 241 

they followed this declaration with the charge that the rit- 
ualists were innovators and were preparing to carry the 
Church back to Rome. Naturally, the Puritans, who op- 
posed Charles on ecclesiastical grounds, joined forces with 
the men who resented his political claims; and thus the abso- 
lutist and High-Church parties had no sooner united than 
the two oppositions, Puritan and parliamentarian, fused 
their interests. Under this alignment of parties and issues 
Charles's tumultuous reign began; and under this align- 
ment the country, after fierce and prolonged controversy, 
embarked on civil war. 

In view of the strained relations between king and Parlia- Tunnage and 
ment, it is intelligible why the Parliament took a most un- 
usual course with regard to the chief revenue of the crown, 
called Tunnage and Poundage. Tunnage and Poundage was 
the name given to certain duties on imports and exports, 
which were usually voted at the beginning of each reign for 
the whole period of the sovereign's life. Partly from oc- 
cupation with other business, partly from desire to bring 
pressure to bear upon the king, the Parliament now failed 
to make the usual life grant, but Charles, who could not well 
carry on the government without Tunnage and Poundage, 
continued, through his officials, to collect it. 

While the clouds were gathering over England by reason Disastrous 
of these domestic infelicities, Charles foolishly invited ad- Stile war^ 
ditional criticism over his management of foreign affairs. Wlth Spain. 
The war with Spain furnished the occasion. He had in- 
herited it from his father, and was bent on prosecuting it 
with vigor. The Parliament was not unwilling to give him 
support — for the war with Spain was popular — but it nat- 
urally expected that the money which it granted would be 
spent in giving the Spaniards a sound beating. But Charles, 
with his customary lack of insight, intrusted the conduct of 
the war to the duke of Buckingham, once his father's fa- 



242 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

vorite and now his own, and the duke of Buckingham, who 
was handsome and dashing, but unfit for weighty business, 
reaped nothing but disaster. Two expeditions, one de- 
spatched toward the Rhine country and the other against 
Cadiz, ended in utter failure. Thereupon the Commons re- 
fused to give the king more money until the duke was re- 
moved from the council; and as the king refused to allow 
himself to be dictated to in the matter of his ministers, there 
ensued a deadlock which Charles ended abruptly by dis- 
solving the Parliament. 

In the year 1627 matters grew worse. The king, not con- 
tent with one war, allowed himself to be dragged into a con- 
flict with France in behalf of the French Huguenots, who 
were being besieged by Richelieu in La Rochelle. As the 
Huguenots were hard pressed, and there was no other way 
of getting money for a rescuing expedition, Charles adopted 
a perilous device: he asked first for voluntary gifts, and when 
the nation failed to respond, forced the wealthy to make 
him a loan. When citizens could not or would not pay, he 
quartered troops upon them, and in order to frighten the 
bolder critics, arbitrarily arrested some of their number. Not 
only were these measures dangerous, but the sums thus ex- 
torted brought no blessing. A relief expedition which sailed 
for Rochelle under Buckingham failed as miserably as the 
attack upon Cadiz, with the discouraging total result that 
new disgrace was added to the ignominy already incurred 
in the war with Spain. 

The Parliament which met in 1628 was therefore amply 
justified in its outbreak of wrath against the government. 
Before granting another penny, it insisted that the griev- 
ances of the nation be redressed. In a document called the 
Petition of Right it made a formal assertion of its claims. 
The Petition of Right declared forced loans illegal, insisted 
that every man put under arrest should have a trial, and con- 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 243 

demned the use of martial law in times of peace, as well as 
the quartering of troops upon householders. As there was 
no other way of getting money, the king had to swallow the 
bitter morsel. The Petition of Right, celebrated as a re- 
newal of Magna Charta, was accepted by him and became 
the law of the land (1628). 

The Petition of Right, by limiting the exuberant powers of Murder of 
the king, cleared the atmosphere and opened the prospect uc ng 
of peace. But, unfortunately, it did not settle all questions 
at issue between sovereign and legislature. Apart from the 
fact that the Tunnage and Poundage question was not dis- 
posed of by the Petition, the mere fact that Charles contin- 
ued to shower favors upon the High Church element and to 
support the obnoxious Buckingham, was enough to keep 
public opinion at a high pitch of excitement. Proof of the 
degree of hatred which the party strife had reached was 
offered soon enough. While a new expedition to Rochelle 
was fitting at Portsmouth, a fanatic patriot, John Felton 
by name, assassinated the hated duke (1628). The king 
grieved over the loss of his favorite, but his policy remained 
obstinately unchanged. 

The Parliament of 1629 had no sooner come together Thememo- 
than it reopened the combat. The members complained 011629. 
vehemently that the king had continued to collect Tunnage 
and Poundage, though the duty had not been voted, and 
they were no less wroth at his continued support of the 
ritualistic churchmen. Their leading orators showed such 
fury of resentment that Charles, in mingled alarm and disgust, 
determined to break up their session, but before the order of 
adjournment could be carried out, three indignant resolutions 
were put to the house, and, while the speaker was detained in 
his chair, carried by acclamation. The resolutions declared 
that whoever introduced innovations into the Church, or paid 
Tunnage and Poundage, was an enemy of the English people. 



244 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



Thus, over the two questions of the ceremonial character 
of the Church and the control of Tunnage and Poundage, 
war was virtually declared between king and Parliament. 
In view of the dangerous excitement of the parties, there 
was small prospect of an amicable adjustment. One or the 
other, king or Parliament, would impose his. theory, and the 
victor would be master and crush the vanquished. 

For the next eleven years (1629-40) the king had the upper 
hand by taking advantage of the extensive prerogatives ac- 
cumulated by his predecessors. The central feature of his 
programme was that the presumptuous Parliament must not 
be given another opportunity to dictate to him. In this the 
laws played into his hands, for a king was not obliged to 
summon Parliament at stated intervals, and usually did not 
summon it unless he wanted a money grant. In fact, it 
should be clearly understood that Charles always prided 
himself upon acting within his rights as defined by the Con- 
stitution; not he, but the Parliament, was the disturber of 
the peace. But his plan of getting along without Parliament ' 
necessitated extreme economy and demanded the immediate 
termination of the expensive wars with France and Spain. 
Before the end of 1630 Charles had made his peace with 
these two powers. His outlook was now, on the whole, not 
unhopeful. Tunnage and Poundage, although condemned 
by the Commons, were regularly paid into the exchequer by 
a people who were not yet ready to renounce their king, and 
Tunnage and Poundage, with a number of other revenues 
regularly provided or scraped together by hook or by crook, 
were found to be sufficient for the current expenses of the 
administration. 

Charles's chief advisers during this eleven years' interlude 
of practically absolute government were Thomas Wentworth, 
for civil matters, and William Laud, for ecclesiastical affairs. 
As the king's person was still regarded with the old sacred 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 245 

respect, all the unpopular measures carried in Church and 
state during this period were laid at the door of these two 
men, who, as the years came and went without a Parliament, 
became the target of an unreasoning hatred. 

Laud stood for the tendency in the English Church which The ecclesi- 
emphasized dignity and ceremony — the same tendency with f LauZ° ' 
which the king had already identified himself. In fact, it 
was because of his own love of ceremony and uniformity 
that the king had bestowed his favor upon the inflexible and 
earnest churchman, had made him, first, bishop of London, 
and finally, in the year 1633, had appointed him archbishop 
of Canterbury and primate of all England. Therewith 
Laud was in a position to put his own and the king's eccle- 
siastical convictions into practice. By means of parochial 
visitations and one-sided judgments pronounced in the J 
ecclesiastical court, called the Court of High Commission, 
he soon imposed upon all the ministers of the Church a 
strict adherence to the forms of the Prayer Book, and did 
not even hesitate to go beyond them. Thus, at his instiga- 
tion, the communion table was placed in the east end of the 
church, and by being surrounded with an iron railing was 
given, in Puritan eyes, something of the appearance of a 
Catholic altar. As a result of Laud's policy the Puritan 
ministers either resigned or were dismissed, and the Puritan 
element was reduced to an enforced silence. Even many 
Englishmen, who welcomed the new regime, deplored the 
unwisdom which shocked the most sacred sentiments of their 
Puritan countrymen and drove them into hostility to the 
national Church. 

Wentworth was a man of far greater intellectual powers The political 
than either Laud or Charles. His theory of government was wentworth. 
that a king who governs well is better than a babbling, 
distraught Parliament. As a natural corollary, he held that 
the executive should be strong, efficient, large-minded, and 



246 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



should steer its course without fear or favor. This sys- 
tem of enlightened despotism he called by the name of 
"thorough." As one of Charles's favorite advisers he urged 
upon the king a firm stand against the exaggerated demands 
of the Parliament and the Puritans, but it would be a mis- 
take to make him responsible for all the ill-advised meas- 
ures which followed the dissolution of 1629, for as early as 
1633 he was sent as Lord-Deputy to Ireland, and was out of 
direct touch with English politics for some years. 

Certainly Wentworth cannot be charged with the great 
blunder committed in connection with ship-money. We 
have seen that Charles's system left him in constant need of 
funds. So slim were his revenues that he could not even 
maintain a navy large enough to protect the English ship- 
ping. The legal remedy for the inconvenience would have 
been to call a Parliament and ask for supplies, but Charles 
would not take that step. He hit upon a subterfuge. In 
former times monarchs had, when the country was in danger, 
ordered the counties bordering on the sea to furnish ships. 
Charles issued such an order in the year 1634, with a certain 
show of legality; but in the years 1635 and 1636, against all 
law and precedent, he ordered the inland counties to con- 
tribute money to the same end. 

Although a navy might be good in itself, plainly Charles's 
way of getting it was a piece of very sharp practice. Indig- 
nation swelled like an advancing tide, and when a country 
gentleman, John Hampden by name, preferred, rather than 
pay his assessment, to suffer arrest and trial, he made him- 
self the hero of the hour. When the case came up in court, 
the judges by a bare majority decided against Hampden, 
but so general was the disaffection following upon his trial, 
that it required only an occasion to show that the loyalty 
which had bound England for ages to her royal house had 
suffered fatal impairment. 



. The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 247 

That occasion was furnished by Scotland. In the year Charles inter- 
1637 Charles, with his usual neglect of popular feeling, Prefbyterian 
ventured to introduce the Prayer Book and some other Cfi urch. 
features of the English Church into his kingdom of Scotland, 
a country which, as we know, was Presbyterian to the core. 
The answer of the Scots to this measure was an insurrection. 
They drew up a national oath or Covenant, by which they 
pledged themselves to resist to the utmost any attempt to 
change their religion. Their unanimity and enthusiasm 
gave them irresistible power. In view of it Charles at first 
hesitated, and to gain time proposed negotiations; but 
finally, when he found that he must either keep his hands off 
or fight, he chose the latter. 

There followed the campaign of 1639 against the Scottish War with 
Presbyterians or Covenanters, which is known as the First 
Bishops' War, because, among other innovations, Charles 
planned to put the Scottish National Church under the rule 
of bishops. The campaign was a miserable fiasco. Owing 
to lack of funds, the king led northward a mere rabble, and 
when he came upon the Scots found himself compelled to 
sign a truce. Between his Scottish and his English subjects, 
whom he had alike alienated, his position was now thoroughly 
humiliating. In order to avenge himself upon the Scots, he 
required effective money help from England, and effective 
money help from England involved calling a Parliament. 
In one direction or the other he had, therefore, to make con- 
cessions. Charles fought a hard battle with his pride, but 
finally, feeling that the Scottish matter was more pressing, 
he summoned a Parliament (1640). 

Thus the long period of government without a Parliament The Second 
had come to an end. When, however, the Parliament, known War°i64o. 
as the Short Parliament, began, instead of voting money for 
the enslavement of the Scots, to remind the king of the nation's 
grievances, Charles flamed up as of old and dismissed it. 



248 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



Once more, in spite of his lack of funds, he conducted a cam- 
paign, known as the Second Bishops' War, against the Scots 
(1640) . But when the second experiment had failed as badly 
as the first, he had finally to acknowledge himself beaten. 

In November, 1640, he summoned another Parliament, 
which he felt he would not be able to send home at his will. 
It has received the name of the Long Parliament, and is the 
most famous legislative body in English annals. It sat for 
almost two decades, witnessing, and itself initiating, the 
transformation of England. 

The Long Parliament was no sooner installed than it 
practically took the whole government into its own hands. 
The king's innings were over and it was now the turn of the 
rival power. Burning for revenge, the Commons turned first 
upon Laud and Wentworth, and ordered them both under 
arrest. Wentworth, who had lately been created earl of 
Strafford, was impeached for treason, but when the case 
against him threatened to break down, because the evidences 
of treason were insufficient, the Commons simply legislated 
him out of the world by a bill of attainder. 1 The frightened 
king to his lasting shame signed the act, and on May 12, 
1 64 1, sent the dauntless defender of the throne to the scaffold. 
The aged Laud was spared for the present, but in 1645 ne 
also fell a victim to Puritan passion. 

At the same time the Commons turned fiercely upon the 
grievances of the past. As the Scots would not leave Eng- 
land till their expenses had been made good to them, 
Charles, to get money, had to accept every bill. Natur- 
ally the Parliament pressed its advantage to the uttermost. 
The irregular courts, such as the Star Chamber and High 
Commission, which had furnished arms to the tyranny of 
king and Church, were abolished. The Star Chamber, it 

1 "An impeachment followed, in some sort, legal rules; a bill of attain- 
der was an act of power for which no reasons need be given " (Gardiner). 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 249 

will be remembered, had been employed by Henry VII. 
against lawless nobles, but Charles had used it chiefly to 
silence inconvenient critics. Out of the mass of enact- 
ments similarly aimed at the king, we select the following: 
ship-money was declared illegal; the king's position in the 
Tunnage and Poundage issue was condemned; Charles 
had to agree that there should be at least one session of 
Parliament every three years (the triennial act), and was 
obliged to promise not to dissolve the present Parliament 
except at its own pleasure. Thus in a few months the 
mighty prerogatives which the sovereign had acquired in 
Tudor times had shrunk to a shadow. Could a king 
of Charles's obstinate and perfidious mind submit to such 
a terrible abasement? 

For nearly a year the king endured these restrictions. Unanimity of 
But he was watching his chance, and the first division among ment- 
the Commons was his signal to strike. The Commons had 
agreed admirably on all the political questions at issue be- 
tween themselves and the sovereign, but in the summer of 
1 64 1, when the religious issue was broached, ominous signs 
of division began to appear. Laud's insistence on cere- 
monies had created a strong sentiment against the bishops 
by whom the ceremonies had been enforced. In the Long 
Parliament there was a large body of men who believed that 
if the Church was to become really Protestant, the system 
of Episcopal government would have to be abandoned. But 
a powerful minority cherished a sentiment of loyalty toward 
the Church of their youth and deprecated radical changes. 
Under the circumstances Puritans and Episcopalians in the Puritans and 
Commons frequently came to hard words, and naturally, in^he^om- 113 
as soon as this opening in the hitherto solid phalanx of the mons - 
opposition was apparent, Charles deftly took advantage of 
it. He threw in his lot with the Episcopalians, ani so once 
more rallied about him a party. 



250 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

Charles at- In the assurance of renewed strength, he planned in Jan- 

arrest S the uary, 1642, to strike a blow at the predominance of Parlia- 

five leaders. rr.ent. Summoning his troops, he marched to Westminster, 
and entering the chamber of the Commons attempted to 
arrest the five leaders, Pym, Hampden, Hazelrigg, Holies, 
and Strode. But the birds had flown, the city rose about 
him, and fearful for his safety he withdrew into the country. 
•Jiie breach The king's attempted violence was sure proof that he had 

is comp e e. nQ m j n( j to b en( i j,j s nec k to the Parliament, and would 

rather resort to war than submit. Futile negotiations, kept 
up for a while, did not blind any one to the fact that the die 
was cast. In August, 1642, Charles, unfurling the royal 
banner at Nottingham, bade all loyal Englishmen rally to 
their king. The Parliament in its turn gathered an army 
and prepared to take the field. 
Early successes The parties about to engage seemed to be very equally 
o e ing. matched. The king's party, known by the proud name of 
the Cavaliers, held most of the northern and western counties, 
while the adherents of the Parliament, derisively dubbed 
Roundheads because many of them cropped their hair close 
while their opponents wore theirs in fashionable curls, held 
the south and the east, with London for their centre. Neither 
side was well furnished with troops, but the fact that the 
slashing country gentlemen crowded into the king's service 
gave the royal side at first the advantage. In the early 
campaigns the armies of the Parliament suffered many 
reverses, and on one occasion London, the Parliamentary 
centre, almost fell into the king's hands. It was really not 
until the year 1644 that the Parliament began to develop an 
efficient army. Simultaneously there rose into prominence 
the man who was destined to overthrow the king and bring 
the war to a conclusion — Oliver Cromwell. 
Oliver Oliver Cromwell is one of those surprising characters who 

sum up in themselves a whole period of their nation's his- 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 251 

tory. He was a country gentleman of the east of England, 
whose life had become bound up in the Puritan cause. 
With moral firmness and religious enthusiasm he combined 
an extraordinary amount of practical good sense, which en- 
abled him to see things exactly as they were. When every- 
body else was in consternation over the victories of the king 
and undecided what to do next, he went straight to the core 
of the military problem with which the Parliament was 
vainly wrestling. He thus expressed himself to his cousin 
Hampden: "Your troops are, most of them, old, decayed 
serving-men and tapsters. . . . Their troops are gentlemen. 
Do you think that the spirit of such base fellows will ever be 
able to encounter gentlemen? You must get men of spirit 
or else you will be beaten still." His good sense had dis- 
covered the thing needful, and his love of action urged him 
to do it, unmindful whether the distraught Parliament sup- 
ported him or not. He took the field and gradually col- 
lected about himself a special troop of men of his own mind 
— earnest Puritans who had their hearts in the cause; and 
his troop soon won for itself the grim title of Cromwell's 
Ironsides. 

In the campaign of 1644 Cromwell's Ironsides first prom- The Ironsides 
inently showed their metal. On July 2, 1644, at Marston Moor"^ 01 * 
Moor, near York, was decided the fate of the northern 
counties, and here for the first time Cromwell's troopers 
charged through the hitherto invincible cavalry commanded 
by Prince Rupert, the king's nephew. When night de- 
scended upon Marston Moor, the king had lost his hold 
upon the north. At the battle of Newbury, which took 
place a few months later, it is probable that the king 
■ would have been crushed entirely if Cromwell had not 
been thwarted by his sluggish and incapable superiors. 

That winter Cromwell fiercely denounced in Parliament Army 
the lax method of carrying on the war which had hitherto reform& 



252 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



Naseby, June 
14, 1645. 



Alliance of 
England and 
Scotland. 



prevailed; and so convincing were his criticisms that the 
Commons voted a number of sweeping reforms. By means 
of two ordinances, the Self-denying Ordinance and the New 
Model, the army was completely reorganized. By the Self- 
denying Ordinance members of Parliament gave up to 
trained soldiers the commands which they owed to favor and 
influence, and by the New Model the army was reorganized 
and put on a strictly professional basis. The spring of 1645 
found Sir Thomas Fairfax at the head of the reformed forces, 
and the fiery Cromwell in command of the horse. 

The effect of the change made itself felt at once ; the cam- 
paign of 1645 proved decisive. At Naseby, in the heart of 
England, the king made his last formidable effort. The 
gallant Rupert plunged, as so often before, through the 
squadrons of horse opposed to him, but his reckless pursuit 
took him miles away from the battle-field, and before he 
could return, Cromwell had broken the king's left and cen- 
tre and won the day. For almost a year the king still held 
out, vainly hoping for relief from this or that small circum- 
stance. In May, 1646, judging that all was over, he surren- 
dered to the Scots, who occupied the English north. 

How had the Scots been drawn upon the scene? Mind- 
ful of the king's hostility to their Presbyterian system, they 
had followed with sympathy the struggle of the English Puri- 
tans, and late in the year 1643, yielding to the solicitations 
of the Parliament, had signed a treaty, called the Solemn 
League and Covenant, and taken the field. Their aid 
proved of great value in crushing the king, but was given 
only in return for a grave concession: the Parliament was 
obliged to promise to put the English Church under the 
Presbyterian system of government. The Puritans owed 
their existence, we have seen, to the growing hatred of cere- 
mony and Episcopacy; but now that ceremony and Episco- 
pacy were overthrown and another system had to be found, 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 253 

a considerable number leaned toward Presbyterianism. A 
majority, it was found, could be had in Parliament for the 
religious concession demanded by the Scots, but a minority, 
calling themselves Independents, objected strenuously, hold- 
ing that the possibilities of tyranny in the Presbyterian sys- 
tem were every whit as great as in Episcopacy, and contend- 
ing vigorously for the toleration of any and all Protestant 
sects. But at the time the need of the Scottish aid was so 
great that the treaty was voted. 

Though in the Parliament the Independents were a mere Presbyterians 
handful, they enjoyed an influence out of proportion to their pendents" 
vote through the circumstance that they commanded the 
powerful backing of Cromwell and the army. Under the 
circumstances the Parliamentary majority was obliged to 
proceed with caution, especially while the war continued 
and the troops had to be kept in good humor. Thus the 
contention slumbered for a time; but as soon as the battle of 
Naseby had been won and the enemy scattered, the quarrel 
between Presbyterians and Independents assumed a more 
serious aspect. 

When the king surrendered to the Scots he was well The king's 
informed of these differences of opinion among the victors, 
and hoped, in his small-minded way, to find his profit in 
them. Let the army, representing the Independents and 
their view of tolerance, only fall to quarrelling with the 
majority of Parliament, representing the Presbyterians and 
their system of religious uniformity, and his turn would 
come. While Parliament and army mutually consumed 
each other, he would step in and seize the spoils. 

Herein Charles calculated both well and ill. In the year TheParlia- 
1647 the Scots surrendered him, on the payment of their ma ke the king 
campaign expenses, to the Parliament. The Presbyterians ^tenanse?- 3 " 
thereupon, having him in their power, tried to hurry through tlement. 
a settlement with the captive monarch. Utterly neglectful 



254 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



The civil war 
of 1648. 



Pride's purge. 



Trial and 
death of the 
king. 



of the desire of the army for religious toleration, they prom- 
ised Charles a restoration on easy terms if he would only 
give his royal assent to the Presbyterian establishment. The 
Scots meanwhile were carrying on a secret negotiation with 
the king, looking to the same end. The result of all these 
intrigues was another civil war, all for the benefit of the 
king. He might rub his hands in glee over the thought that 
he had set his enemies by the ears. In the result, however, 
Charles's petty calculations shot wide of the mark. Al- 
though the royalists rose, the Scots invaded England, and 
the Presbyterians aided the king as much as they dared, 
their combined forces were no match for the victors of 
Naseby. In a short campaign, conducted in the summer of 
1648, Fairfax and Cromwell laid their enemies at their feet. 
The army was supreme in England. 

Before attacking any other problem the army was resolved 
to settle its long-standing account with "that man of blood," 
the perfidious Stuart, by bringing him to trial. As the Pres- 
byterian majority of the Commons objected to this course, 
it had to be swept out of the way. On December 6, 1648, 
a troop, under the command of Colonel Pride, expelled the 
Presbyterian members, to the number of about one hundred 
and forty, from the House. No more than fifty or sixty 
commoners retained their seats, who could hardly be ex- 
pected to resist the army. They continued to exercise the 
duties of Parliament, but the people fixed upon them the 
contemptuous term of the " Rump." 

The way was now cleared for the trial of the king; but as 
there was no provision in the law for such a step, it became 
necessary to resort to illegality. By an act of the servile 
" Rump " there was created a special High Court of Justice. 
The end, of course, was to be foreseen. The army, with 
Cromwell at its head, would not have proceeded to such ex- 
tremes of violence if it had not been profoundly convinced 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 251 



that with this king, whose every act was a subterfuge, whose 
every word an equivocation, there could be no peace. The 
High Court of Justice found the king guilty of treason, and 
on January 30, 1649, he was executed on a scaffold erected 
in front of his own palace of Whitehall. He had never been 
shaken in the conviction that the right, during the whole 
course of the civil war, had been with him, and he died cour- 
ageously in that belief. To awestruck royalists his death 
invested him with the halo of a saint and martyr who had 
perished in a vain effort to uphold the Constitution and the 
Church. 

The king's death had been preceded by the dissolution The army 
of the House of Lords because of the refusal of that body to in power# 
join in the prosecution of the king. The English Constitu- 
tion, therefore, was now a wreck; king and Lords had dis- 
appeared, the Commons were a fragment. The power lay 
solely with the army, and the burning question of the day 
was whether the military revolutionists would be able to 
build a new constitution grounded in sound principles and 
acceptable to England. 

For eleven years the leaders of the army attempted with The ideal of 
really noble zeal and sincerity to realize their ideal of gov- republicaias, 
ernment. That ideal was born of the deep religious con- 
viction that every man must indeed be a follower of Christ, 
but that he should be allowed to worship after his own fash- 
ion. In consequence, Cromwell and his friends desired a 
government of upright Puritan men who tolerated every be- 
lief but Popery. Unfortunately, the vast majority of con- 
temporary Englishmen were either Episcopalian or Presby- 
terian, and royalist to the ^.ore. Therefore the Puritan 
exoeriment, however nobly inspired, was doomed to end in 
failure. 



256 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



The Common- 
wealth. 



Cromwell 
conquers 
Ireland. 



Cromwell 
conquers 
Scotland. 



Dismissal of 
the " Rump.' 



The Commonwealth anal the Protectorate (1649-60). 

On the death of the king, the "Rump" voted that Eng- 
land was a Commonwealth without king or Lords, and ap- 
pointed, provisionally, a Council of State to act as the exec- 
utive branch of the government. 

There was work enough ahead for the young republic. 
In Ireland the Commonwealth held no more than a few 
isolated outposts, while in Scotland, an allied kingdom, 
Charles II., the oldest son of the dead sovereign, had been 
proclaimed king. In the clear recognition that the Com- 
monwealth could not live with Ireland and Scotland ranged 
against it, Cromwell was despatched to reduce the neighbor- 
ing kingdoms to submission. In an irresistible campaign of 
the year 1649, ^ e disposed of the Irish, after cowing their 
spirit by two bloody massacres at Drogheda and Wexford. 
Then a rule of force was established such as Ireland had not 
seen before, and a great part of the land was confiscated for 
the benefit of the conquerors. This done, the victor turned 
to Scotland. At I)unbaf (1650) Cromwell's soldiers, whose 
tempers were like the steel with which they smote, scattered 
the Scotch army; and when a second army, with Charles II. 
in its midst, struck across the border in the hope of stirring 
up an English rebellion, Cromwell, starting in pursuit, met 
it at Worcester, in the heart of England, and won the crown- 
ing victory of his life (1651). Charles II. escaped, after vari- 
ous romantic adventures, to the Continent; but the Scots 
were compelled to recognize the Commonwealth and be 
merged with England in a single state. 

With peace reestablished throughout the British dominion, 
the question of a permanent government became more press- 
ing. Everybody clamored for a settlement and the termi- 
nation of the long disorder. Only the " Rump " Parliament 
was in no hurry, and the fifty or sixty members who com- 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 257 

posed it not only clung to office, but even planned to per- 
petuate their power. Naturally, the soldiers, who wished to 
see practical results, watched the delays of the legislators 
with growing impatience. In April, 1653, their great leader, 
Cromwell, despairing of good from so narrow and selfish a 
body of men, resolved to have done with them. He invaded 
the "Rump" with a detachment of troops and ordered the 
members home. "Come, come," he shouted in indigna- 
tion, "we have had enough of this. It is not fit you should 
sit here any longer." Thus the last fragment of the old Con- 
stitution vanished from the scene. 

A new Parliament, freely elected by the nation, would have Barebone's 
been one solution of the difficulties which now confronted I 6 53 . 
Cromwell. But such a Parliament would have immediately 
called back the Stuarts, and Cromwell was ready to try all 
other means before he declared that the great cause, which 
to his fervid mind was that of God Himself, had failed. In 
conjunction with a number of officers he therefore nom- 
inated an assembly of Puritan partisans who were to act as 
Parliament. In an openmg"~spreech he told them that they 
were called because they were godly men. But although 
they meant well, they were inexperienced and crotchety. 
The town wags, immensely amused at their provincial man- 
ners and ideas, called them Barebone's Parliament, from a 
certain worthy member whose evangelical name of Praise- 
God Barebone invited their ridicule. Luckily, after a few 
weeks a party among the nominees recognized their own un- 
fitness and brought about the closing of the session (Decem- 
ber, 1653). 

As some government had to fill up the gap, the army offi- ThePro- 
cers now drew up a Constitution in forty-one articles, called 
the Instrument of Government, which placed the chief power 
in the hands of Oliver Cromwell under the title of Lord 
Protector. By the new Constitution the Lord Protector, to- 



tectorate. 



258 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

gether with a Council of State, was to exercise the executive 
power, while a Parliament of a single House, from which all 
partisans of the Stuarts were excluded, was to perform the 
legislative functions of government. The new attempt came 
nearer than any of the others to being an equitable solution 
of the political difficulties into which England had been 
plunged; but, unfortunately, even the partial success achieved 
was accompanied by the disfranchisement of the royalists, 
and was primarily due to the fact that the new Constitution 
placed in control an entirely efficient man. 
The domestic The five years (1653-58) of Oliver's rule as Protector were 
the Protector, beset with ever-recurring difficulties. His very first Parlia- 
ment insisted on revising the Instrument of Government. 
As that was tantamount to calling the whole settlement in 
question, Oliver in high dudgeon dissolved the Parliament 
(January, 1655). For a while now he ruled without a leg- 
islature. There were frequent attempts upon his life, repub- 
lican conspiracies, royalist risings, the cares and annoy- 
ances inseparable from rule. The Protectorate, with its 
one-man power, was, if possible, even more offensive to 
the strong republican element in England than to the royal 
adherents of the Stuarts. Oliver confessed with sorrow that 
"it was easier to keep sheep than to govern men." But his 
brave spirit was undaunted and he met every difficulty as it 
arose. He called a second Parliament in the year 1656, 
and with this he got along more smoothly for a while. The 
traditional English conservatism governed this assembly, 
and it tried to fall back upon the lines of the old Constitu- 
tion. It created a second House to take the place of the 
abolished House of Lords and offered to make Oliver he- 
reditary king. But Oliver, who had no love of baubles, and 
already exercised a virtual kingship as Protector, declined 
the dangerous title. When this same Parliament came up 
to London for a second session and followed a course in- 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 259 

compatible with the maintenance of the government, Oliver 
reproachfully dismissed it, like its predecessor (February, 
1658). His bitter experience with his legislature must have 
convinced him, if he stood in need of proof, that the nation 
was not with him. Disguise it as he might, his rule rested 
upon the army and was a military despotism. 

In all this time the great principle of toleration, which The failure 
Oliver had mainly at heart, made no progress. Oliver's 
original idea had been to give all Protestant Christians the 
protection of the law. But the fierce religious temper of 
the time prevented people from seeing any right outside 
of their own faith. Oliver, like all men who are ahead 
of their time, was left without support. The animosities 
of his antagonists, as well as of his followers, forced him, 
therefore, before long to trench upon his principles. In 
1655 he began persecuting those who held to the Book 
of Common Prayer, and long before his end he had the 
bitter conviction that the government of the Puritan Com- 
monwealth rested on no single principle that had taken root 
in the nation. 

If Oliver was thus reaping failure at home, he heaped War with the 
triumph upon triumph abroad. From 1652 to 1654 there 54 uc '* S2 
had been a war with the Dutch, caused by English jealousy of 
the immense commerce of the rival republic. The immedi- 
ate cause of the rupture was a measure, called the Naviga- 
tion Act (1651), devised to increase English shipping. As 
it was declared by this act that foreign ships could bring 
to England only such goods as were produced in their own 
country, the Dutch, who were carriers for the whole world, 
were dealt a severe blow. In the war that followed, the 
English, after a few preliminary losses, got command of the 
Channel, and Cromwell was enabled to sign (1654) a fav- 
orable peace which greatly strengthened his credit in the 
eyes of the world, 



260 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



Oliver makes 
war upon 
Spain. 



The death of 
Oliver. 



Anarchy. 



Soon after, in 1655, Oliver made war upon Spain, finally 
going so far as to enter into an alliance with France against 
the common foe. Jamaica, in the West Indies, was taken 
from Spain by an English fleet, and Dunkirk, 1 in the Span- 
ish Netherlands, after a victory of the allies on the Dunes, 
opened its gates to Cromwell's troopers. Since the days 
of Elizabeth, the name of England had not enjoyed such 
respect as it did now. Oliver's arm reached even to the 
Alps, and at his command the duke of Savoy ceased perse- 
cuting his Protestant subjects. 

Thus to the end the Protector held the rudder firmly. 
But his health was broken by his great responsibilities, and 
on the third day of September, 1658, he passed away. It 
had been his " fortunate day "—that was his own word — ■ 
the day of the great victories of Dunbar and Worcester, 
and was to his mind, heavy with the disappointments of his 
reign, perhaps no less fortunate because it brought the end 
of tribulation. His last prayer, in which breathes all his 
Christian fervor, all his honesty and charity, has been re- 
corded for us. "Lord," ran a part of it, "Thou hast made 
me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do Thy 
people some good. . . . Pardon such as desire to trample 
upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too." 

Cromwell's death was followed by a year of anarchy. As 
the Commonwealth was founded on the army and not 
on the consent of the people of England, its continuance 
depended on the army's finding a successor of the same 
metal as the great Protector. But that was impossible. 
Oliver was succeeded by his inoffensive and incapable 
son, Richard, who in May, 1659, resigned an office calling 
for powers which he did not possess. Then the " Rump " 
came back, once more pretending that it was the author- 
itative government of England. Sections of the soldiery 

1 Dunkirk was held only till 1662, when Charles II. sold it to France. 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 261 

disputed the claim and rose in rebellion. Clearly the only- 
escape from the intolerable imbroglio was to call back the 
son of the dead king. The people themselves were more 
than willing, but to insure success some resolute man at the 
head of an armed force would have to take the initiative. 
The man wanted was found in ^^n^alJGLeijr^e^Monk^jone 
of Cromwell's most capable lieutenants and his representa- 
tive in Scotland. Monk, at the head of his soldiers, came Monk calk 
to London, and calling back the surviving members of the Stuarts. 
Long Parliament obliged them to dissolve after issuing writs 
for a new election. With the way thus cleared, Charles II. 
from his exile in Holland issued a general pardon, and 
when the new Parliament met was enthusiastically invited 
to mount the throne of his ancestors. The new Parlia- 
ment declared that "the government of this kingdom is, 
and ought to be, by king, Lords, and Commons." When 
Charles entered London on May 28, 1660, the houses emp- 
tied their eager population upon street and square, and the 
reimpatriated king was cheered like a conqueror. 

The Restoration. Charles II. (1660-85) an, d James II. 
(1685-88). 

Charles II. was one of the most popular monarchs Eng- Character of 
land ever had, but his popularity was due not so much to 
his virtues as to his vices. To understand this remarkable 
circumstance, we must remember that the Restoration is a 
general movement of reaction. It marks not merely a return 
from the Puritan experiment of government, but also a re- 
vulsion from the austere and colorless scheme of life which 
the Puritans had imposed upon society. Like one who 
had thirsted a long while, the Englishman of the Restora- 
tion threw himself greedily upon splendor and distractions. 
Now Charles II. had lived long in France, and there his self- 



262 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



indulgent nature had drunk its fill of the gayety and licen- 
tiousness which characterized the sumptuous court of Louis 
XIV. Upon his restoration Charles became the apostle of 
French manners in England; profligacy became the fashion 
of the day, and the king added to his constitutional function 
of sovereign the far more congenial role of master of the 
revels. The country, out of sorts with the Puritan ideals, 
applauded, admired its sovereign's witty sallies and studied 
courtesy, and joined the dance and sounded the pipe around 
the "Merry Monarch" of an England once again resolved 
to be likewise merry. 

Charles had a good deal of .natural sagacity, but little en- 
ergy and no moral fibre. In the end his resolutions usually 
succumbed to his indolence. His pleasures went before 
everything else, and when a conflict threatened with his 
ministers or Parliament, he was in the habit of giving way, 
with the joke that whatever happened he did not care to 
start again upon his travels. A monarch so intelligent and 
supple, so unencumbered with Stuart obstinacy, was likely 
to make himself both popular and secure. 

No sooner was the monarchy restored than the desire 
seized the victors to be revenged upon their Puritan ad- 
versaries. The king's general pardon issued from Hol- 
land was subject to parliamentary revision, and the Par- 
liament, far more vindictive than the sovereign, resolved 
to punish all who had been instrumental in bringing 
Charles I. to death. Thirteen revolutionists were exe- 
cuted, and a contemptible and revolting vengeance was 
wreaked upon the body of the great Cromwell. It was 
dragged from its tomb and suspended with iron chains from 
the gallows. 

Such scenes apart, the Restoration was far less violent 
than similar events in history, owing largely, it must be ad- 
mitted, to the humanity of the king. Yet to the defeated 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 263 

and dejected Puritans, whose leading survivor was the great 
poet Milton, it looked as if the return of Charles had closed 
upon them the gates of Paradise, and made vain the civil 
. struggle of the past twenty years. But that was not quite 
the case. As the Petition of Right and most of the early 
enactments of the Long Parliament had received the royal 
assent, they remained in vigor, thereby substantially reduc- 
ing the royal prerogative. Nevertheless, the king's powers 
were still so great that he might plot for the overthrow 
of the Constitution, and make it advisable for the people to 
cut down still further his authority. In that case a new 
conflict would arise. But the danger of it for the present 
was slight. Charles II. was an unenterprising reveller, and 
the people in their reckless access of loyalty might almost 
have applauded an attempted usurpation. 

The Cavalier Parliament, as Charles's second Parliament, The Cavalier 
convened in 1661 and allowed to hold power for eighteen I 66 I !^^ nt ' 
years, was significantly called, completely expressed this re- 
actionary sentiment of the country — it was more royal than 
- the king. One of its first acts was to vote that nQjone could 
lawfully take arms against the sovereign, that is, it affirmed 
what was called the doctrjne__ofn on-resiptq - rjirp. Such a 
legislature seemed to be separated by a chasm of ages from 
the Long Parliament. But the most pressing question for 
which the Parliament had to find a solution was the question 
of religion. During the last twenty years every conceivable 
form of Protestant dissent had sprung into existence and 
found supporters. Were these sects to be tolerated or was Intolerance of 
England to go back to a uniform national Church? In the p ar iiament. 
Cavalier Parliament — a body of royalists and reactionaries — 
there was only one opinion: the Church of England and 
nothing but the Church of England. It undertook, there- 
fore, to restore the historical religion and persecute every 
deviation with relentless severity. 



264 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



A new Act of 

Uniformity, 

1662. 



The Dis- 
senters. 



Repressive 
legislation. 



Catholicism 
is the enemy. 



In the year 1662 the Parliament passed a new Act of 
Uniformity. By its provisions the Prayer Book was_ made 
^obligatory, and two thousand clergymen who would not 
bend their necks to the yoke were ejected from their livings. 
Among the dismissed ministers were to be found Presby- 
terians, Independents (also called Congregationalists) , and 
Baptists, most of them zealous and honorable men, who, as 
they did not accept the national Church, were henceforth 
classed together as Dissenters. 

In the religious history of England this formal and definite 
ejection of the Puritan element from the Church marks a 
notable mile-stone. It will be remembered that the Puritans 
in general had not wished to separate from the national 
Church, but desired rather to so modify its forms that it 
might include or "comprehend" them. From now on all 
hope of "comprehension" was given up. The Dissenters, 
of whatever color, accepted their exclusion from the Church 
of England as an irrevocable fact, and henceforth directed 
all their efforts toward acquiring toleration for their own 
distinct forms of worship. 

But the Cavalier Parliament was the last body in the 
world to give ear to a request for religious liberty. As in its 
opinion the proper way to treat Dissenters was to suppress 
them, it developed a highly perfected system of persecution. 
In the year 1664 it passed the Conventicle Act, by which the 
meetings of Dissenters for religious purposes were punished 
with fines culminating in transportation; and a year later 
(1665) there followed the Five Mile Act, by the terms of 
which no Dissenting minister was allowed to teach school or 
reside within five miles of any town or place where he had 
once held a cure. 

It is not probable that the Cavalier Parliament would have 
insisted on the national creed with such vehemence, if it 
had not been persuaded that toleration granted to the Dis- 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 265 



senters would open a loop-hole for the Catholics. And just 
then the suspicion against Catholicism was stronger in the 
land than ever, because of the secret machinations of the 
court in its behalf. Had the facts that were only whispered 
in the palace-passages been known at Westminster, there 
can be no doubt that the religious legislation would have 
been even more stringent than it was; for Charles, although 
afraid to publish the truth, had secretly embraced Cathol- 
icism. 

A monarch who identified himself so little in religious mat- The foreign 
ters with his people was not likely to serve them in the for- charies. 
eign field. In fact, his guidance of England was of a piece 
with his superficial and selfish view of life. He disliked the 
bluff republican Dutch and admired the sumptuous Louis 
XIV. of France, and governed his conduct accordingly. 

We have noticed the growing commercial rivalry between First Dutch 
the Dutch and the English. The Navigation Act, passed in Restoration 
165 1 by the "Rump," and the war that followed were evi- l66 4-67- 
dences of it. When to a number of ancient jealousies, ex- 
cited in part by conflicting colonial claims, was added the 
animosity created by the formal reenactment of the Navi- 
gation Act, war could not long be averted. For three years 
(1664-67) the adversaries sought one another upon all the 
seas; but when peace was signed, the Dutch were obliged to 
cede_their American colony, New Amsterdam, which was re- 
named New York Inhbnor of James, duke of York and 
brother of the king. 

This was the time of the ascendancy of France in Euro- Charlesjeans 
pean politics. The leading fact of the general situation was 
that Louis XIV. was planning to extend his territory at the 
expense of his neighbors. The logical policy of England, 
as the rival of France, would have been to support the vic- 
tim against the aggressor; but Charles looked at the question 
not from the general but from the personal point of view. 



toward France. 



266 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

Naturally, his riotous life kept him involved in constant 
money difficulties, as fortunes were flung away on entertain- 
ments, or were lavished on courtiers and mistresses. To 
get money, therefore, and more money became Charles's 
great object in life; and Louis XIV., who was not without 
a shrewd streak amid his lavishness, was perfectly willing 
to oblige his brother of England, if he could by this means 
buy England's aid, or, at least, her neutrality in the conflicts 
he anticipated. Now the French king began his aggressions, 
in the year 1667, by invading the Spanish Netherlands; but 
after taking a few towns he was forced to desist, chiefly owing 
to the energetic protest of the Dutch, supported temporarily 
by England and Sweden. No wonder that the haughty 
Louis resolved to have revenge on this nation of traders and 
^/ republicans. By the secret Treaty of Dover (1670) he won 
over Charles by a handsome sum to join him in his projected 
war against the Dutch; and Charles, in his turn, stipulated 
to avow himself a Catholic as soon as the occasion served, 
and to call on Louis for military aid in case his subjects, on 
the news of his conversion, rose in revolt. 
Second Dutch When, in the year 1672, everything was at length ready, 
Restoration Louis and Charles fell suddenly like two highwaymen upon 
1672-74. thg Dutch, engaging in what in England is known as the 

Second Dutch War of the Restoration. Just as the war was 
about to break out, Charles, not yet daring to go the whole 
length of announcing himself a Catholic, published a decree 
of toleration, the so-called Declaration of Indulgence, which, 
overriding tH§ -statutes of Parliament, suspended the ex- 
ecution of all penal laws against Catholics and Dissenters. 
Such a measure invrtes the sympathy of the modern world, 
but it is necessary to remember, in judging it, that its motives 
were impure, and that it nullified the laws of England by an 
arbitrary act. The outcry was general; and when Parlia- 
ment met it insisted on the king's withdrawing his Dec- 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 267 

taxation. Reluctantly Charles yielded (1673), but with this 
retreat the war had lost its interest for him; and as the Eng- 
lish people were learning to feel more and more strongly that 
their real enemy was the French and not the Dutch, he gave 
way to popular pressure and concluded peace (1674). Thus 
the treason hatched out in the Treaty of Dover came to noth- 
ing, except in so far as it involved the Dutch in another he- 
roic combat for their life and liberty. So stubborn was their 
defence under their Stadtholder, William III. of Orange, 
that Louis XIV., baffled and discouraged, finally followed 
Charles's example and withdrew from the struggle (Peace of 
Nimwegen, 1678). 

But Parliament was not satisfied with the victory it had The Test Act, 
won in the matter of the Declaration. The members were T 73 " 
now so thoroughly suspicious of the secret Catholic parti- 
sanship of the court that they added a crowning measure 
to their intolerant religious legislation, the Test Act, which 
provided that all persons holding office under the crown 
should publicly receive the sacrament according to Angli- 
can custom. In consequence of this act, which tested and 
weighed every man by his faith, only avowed adherents of 
the Church of England could henceforth hold office, and no 
less a person than the duke of York, the king's brother and 
heir, had to resign the post of Lord High Admiral because 
he was a Catholic. 

But the spectre of Catholicism continued to stalk through The " Popish 

• Plot " 

the land, leading at times to outbreaks which would be 

ludicrous, if they had not been so profoundly tragical. The 
most famous of them is of the year 1678 and is known as the 
"Popish Plot." A certain Titus Oates, a discredited ad- 
venturer and confessed scoundrel, told a rambling story 
before a magistrate to the effect that he had discovered a 
conspiracy on the part of the Catholics to institute in Eng- 
land another St. Bartholomew. Although Oates's story was 



268 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

palpably absurd, it won general credence, and as a result of 
the frantic agitation which seized the country a number of 
prominent Catholics were executed, others confined in the 
Tower, and a corollary was added to the Test Act by which 
Catholics were barred from the House of Lords, the only 
place where they had not hitherto been disturbed. 

Charles died in the year 1685, after a reign of twenty-five 
years. On his death-bed he privately received the sacrament 
according to the Catholic rite, and then, keeping up his life- 
long comedy to the last, died decorously according to the 
prescriptions of the national Church. 

The reign of Charles is marked by an advance in the po- 
litical life of the nation which merits close attention. The 
gushing loyalty which accompanied the first acts of the 
Cavalier Parliament did not last. The distrust engendered 
by the Catholic tendencies of the court had already impaired 
it, when the prospect of the succession of the Catholic duke of 
York gave it a staggering blow. A party called the Whigs 
arose which aimed to exclude the duke of York from the 
throne on the ground of religion; another party, called the 
Tories, 1 stood stanchly by the principle of legitimate suc- 
cession. Charles, with the support of the Tories, managed 
at the close of his reign to score a triumph over the Whigs, 
but the fact remained that for the first time in the history 
of English Parliamentary life there had been created parties 
with a definite programme and something like a permanent 
organization. From that day to this, a period of over two 
centuries, the Whigs and Tories, latterly under the names of 
Liberals and Conservatives, have disputed the government 
of England between them. It will be seen that the succession 



1 These names were originally taunts, flung by excited orators at the 
heads of their opponents. Tory is derived from the Irish and signifies 
robber. Whig comes probably from Whiggam, a cry with which the Scotch 
peasants exhorted their horses. Applied as a party name, it was intended 
to convey the idea of a rebellious Covenanter. 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 269 

issue in which the parties had their origin was intimately 
associated with the question of religion. The Tories drew 
their strength from the uncompromising supporters of the 
Church of England, while the Whigs, standing for a Protes- 
tant succession, found it profitable to lean upon the Dissen- 
ters and advocate religious toleration for all Protestants. If 
ever the Whigs came to power the Dissenters could count 
on something being done for them, while as long as the 
Tories ruled the state they were sure to be oppressed. 

James II. (1685-88). 

James II., who succeeded his brother Charles, was not James II. 
only an open and avowed Catholic, which, of course, raised 
an impassable barrier between him and his subjects, but he 
was also imbued with the same ideas of Divine Right as 
his father Charles I., and he held to them as stubbornly as 
ever that monarch had done. Worst of all, he had no touch 
of the political cleverness of Charles II. Under these circum- 
stances the new reign did not promise well. James was, 
indeed, received at first with some warmth, but a succession 
of rash and ill-judged measures reduced him rapidly to a 
state of icy isolation. 

As James was a Catholic among suspicious and embittered Catholic 
Protestants, he should, at the very least, have kept quiet, jam^ 680 
But he seems to have been possessed with the idea that he 
had been made king for the express purpose of furthering 
the Catholic cause. He did not even trouble himself to 
proceed cautiously. Overriding the Test Act, he presently 
put his coreligionists into important positions in the army 
and the civil service. Soon after, in 1687, he published, in 
imitation of his brother, ^Declaration of Indulgence, sus- 
pending all penalties againsrCathoIics and Dissenters. He 
justified his action in these matters by what he called the 
royal dispensing power, which was supposed to give him the 



270 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 



Monmouth 
and "the 
Bloody 
Assizes." 



Birth of a son. 



right not to abolish laws, but to delay their execution. If he 
really had any such power, it was plain that he was superior 
to the law, and the civil war had been in vain. Regardless of 
the universal discontent he published, in 1688, a Second 
Declaration, and ordered it to be read from all the pulpits. 
Most of the clergy refused to conform to this tyrannical 
order, and seven bishops presented to the king a written 
protest. James's answer was an order that legal proceed- 
ings be taken against them. Immense excitement gathered 
around the trial, which occurred in June, 1688. 

Meanwhile other irregularities and violences of the king 
had added to his unpopularity. In the year of his accession, 
the Protestant duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of 
Charles II., had invaded England with a small force, but 
was defeated, captured, and executed. James might have 
been satisfied with this success. He preferred, however, a 
general persecution. He sent into the west, among the 
people who had supported Monmouth, the savage and 
infamous Judge Jeffreys, for the purpose of ferreting out 
Monmouth's adherents. The mockery of justice engaged 
in by Jeffreys is known as "the Bloody Assizes." The in- 
human monster was not satisfied until he had hanged three 
hundred and twenty victims, mostly poor peasants, and trans- 
ported eight hundred and forty to the West Indies. The 
odium of these misdeeds fell, of course, upon the king. 

All this was for a time put up with by the people because 
the next heir to the throne, James's daughter Mary, who was 
the child of his first marriage and the wife of William of 
Orange, was a Protestant. The nation looked forward to 
her succession with the more pleasure as her husband, too, 
was, on his mother's side, a Stuart. 1 When, however, James's 
second wife gave birth, in June, 1688, to a son, who by the 
English law would take precedence over Mary, consterna- 

1 See Genealogical Table on page 565. 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 271 

tion seized the whole people. The son, it was foreseen, 
would be educated in the Catholic religion, and thus the 
Catholic dynasty would be perpetuated. As the birth of the 
son and the trial of the seven bishops occurred about the 
same time (June, 1688), England was filled with excitement 
from end to end. Seizing the opportunity, a number of lead- 
ing Englishmen, representing both the Whig and Tory par- 
ties, sent a secret letter inviting William of Orange and his 
wife Mary to come to England's rescue. 

In November, 1688, William landed in England, and William 
joyously and spontaneously the people of all classes rallied England, 
around him. When the army which James sent against him 
refused to fight, the wretched king at last awakened to the 
fact that he stood alone. Suddenly and utterly discour- 
aged, he sent his wife and child to France, and shortly after 
followed in person. Perhaps never in history had there 
been a more swift and bloodless revolution. 

When Parliament met, it was confronted by the difficult Thereorgani 
task of harvesting the fruits of the popular success. It be- monarchy. 6 
gan by declaring James's reign at an end, and offering the 
throne conjointly to William and Mary. Thereby it sol- 
emnly committed itself to the view that the king was not 
Heaven's anointed, called to the throne by hereditary Divine 
Right, but was the choice of people and Parliament. Hence- 
forth a king of England had no other claim to the crown 
than a statute of the realm. An act of Parliament had made 
him, an act also might undo him. Then the victorious 
Parliament proceeded to complete the edifice of its power. 
Throughout the seventeenth century the conflict had raged 
between king and Parliament over their respective spheres 
of control. The Petition of Right (1628) was the first act 
which effectually clipped the wings of the monarchy. The 
Long Parliament was engaged in completing the work, when 
the civil war intervened and buried the issue beneath the din 



272 The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 

of arms. At length the flood of loyalty, once again set in 
motion by ten years of military rule, brought the Stuarts 
back to the throne, but did not restore them to the preroga- 
tive of their ancestors. The only means of tyranny left in 
their hands was the claim that as divinely appointed kings 
they were above the laws and could suspend their execution 
when they pleased. The cautious Charles had exercised 
this supposed right charily, but the infatuated James had 
built up his system of tyranny upon it. This last loop-hole 
of arbitrary rule the Parliament now proceeded to stop up 

The Bill of by means of a Bill_of_Rights (1689), wherein the so-called 
!g .19- dispensing power was declared abolished, and fEeTung was 
in every respect subjected to the law. The Bill of Rights 
further enumerated and forbade anew all the illegal acts of 
James, and formally and solemnly excluded Roman Catho- 
lics from the throne. The measure ended the long consti- 
tutional struggle in England by giving the victory and the 
fruits thereof to the Parliament, with the result that from 
this time on to our own day the Parliament has controlled 
the government of England. 

TheTolera- If the revolution of 1688 closed the political conflict by 

seating the Parliament in the place of power, it also led to a 
measure which promised a solution of the long-standing re- 
ligious troubles. Chiefly with the support of the Whigs, Par- 
liament passed, almost simultaneously with the Bill of Rights, 
a Toleration Act, conceding to the Dissenters the right of 
public worship. The Test Act, which barred them from 
office, was not repealed, but they could at least serve their 
God as they pleased, and that, after the long persecution 
they had suffered, was a sufficient blessing for the present. 
Indeed, it was not until the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury that the final disabilities resting upon non-Anglicans 
were removed. But if the current bigotry of high and low 
balked at more than partial alleviation for dissenting Prot- 



The Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 273 

estants, it was plain that after the late experience with a 
Catholic king, no concession at all would be made to the 
adherents of the Pope. Tests and penal laws continued 
therefore in full force, and made life a very heavy burden to 
Catholic Englishmen for a long time to come. But the 
Toleration Act, by satisfying at least the old Puritan element, 
greatly promoted religious peace. 

The literature of the seventeenth century presents in sharp Puritan and 
contrast the'two theories of life which combated each other literature? 11 
under the party names of Cavalier and Roundhead. The 
moral severity and the noble aspiration of Puritanism found 
sublime expression in John Milton ("Paradise Lost," 1667), 
and a simple-minded eulogist in John Bunyan ("Pilgrim's 
Progress," 1675). But the literary reign of these men and 
their followers was short, for the Restoration quickly buried 
them under its frivolity and laughter. Inevitably literature 
followed the currents of the contemporary life, and Milton 
and Bunyan were succeeded by a school of licentious dram- 
atists and literary triflers. John Dryden (1631-1701), a 
man of high gifts which suffered by contact with a hollow 
age, is the great figure of the Restoration and rises head and 
shoulders above his Liliputian contemporaries. 

If the Restoration were to be judged merely by its contri- Revival of 
butions to literature, it would not merit high consideration. 
It was, as we have seen, a reaction from the boundless 
idealism of the previous period, and turned men to definite in- 
tellectual pursuits. The scientific spirit, having its roots in 
man's curiosity about himself and his environment, began 
to stir once more, and for its cultivation was founded, in 
1660, the Royal Society. That England made rapid strides 
in philosophy and physics is witnessed by the great names 
of Locke and Newton. Their work, conducted on the prin- 
ciple of the collection of facts through patient observation of 
nature, helped to lay the foundations of modern science. 



science. 



CHAPTER XII 



The work of 
Richelieu. 



The regency 
of Anne of 
Austria. 



THE ASCENDANCY OF FRANCE UNDER LOUIS XIV. 
(1643-1715) 

References: Wakeman, The Ascendancy of France, pp. 
153-64, Chapters IX., X., XI., XIV., XV.; Kitchin, 
History of France, Vol. III., pp. 58-360; Hassall, 
Mazarin; Hassall, Louis XIV.; Adams, Growth of the 
French Nation, Chapter XIII. ; Perkins, France under 
Richelieu and Mazarin. 

Source Readings: Duke of St. Simon, Memoirs of the, 
4 vols, (a brilliant gallery of portraits of courtiers and 
ladies) ; Madame de Sevign£, Letters of ; Robinson, 
Readings, Chapter XXI. (Richelieu, Colbert, Louis's 
Court, etc.). 

The work of Richelieu, as we have seen, cleared the way 
for the supremacy of France in Europe. By destroying the 
political privileges of the Huguenots and by breaking the 
power of the nobility he had freed the royal authority from 
the last restraints which weighed upon it, and had rendered 
it absolute. At the same time the great minister had en- 
gaged France in the Thirty Years' War, and had reaped for 
her the benefits of the Peace of Westphalia (1648). But 
just at this point, as France was about to assume a dominant 
position, she was threatened once more, and as it proved for 
the last time under the old monarchy, by civil war. 

Richelieu's king, Louis XIII. , died only a few months after 
him, in 1643, leaving behind a five-year-old son, in whose 
name the queen, Anne of Austria, assumed the regency. At 

274 



Under Louis XIV. 275 

the same time the post of leading minister, which had been 
occupied by Richelieu, fell to the confidant of the regent, 
another churchman and an Italian by birth, Cardinal 
Mazarin. Trained under the eyes of Richelieu, the new 
minister tried to carry out faithfully his predecessor's pro- 
gramme, and was rewarded, like his predecessor, with the 
aversion of the great nobles, the chief of whom was the 
famous general, the prince of Onde. The Peace of West- 
phalia had not yet been signed, when a domestic trouble 
occurred which the nobles tried to make serve their ends. 
The Parliament of Paris resisted a new tax, but before this 
very promising issue was fairly under way the nobles, re- 
joicing in the embarrassment of the government, insinuated 
themselves into the struggle. Thus, what had been at the 
outset an intelligent constitutional movement, degenerated 
quickly into a rebellion of the feudal order to recover its lost 
authority. The moment the civil war, known under the The Fronde, 
name of the Fronde, took this shape, it deserved to fail, for 
though France might have profited by the victory of a con- 
stitutional party committed to the idea of popular control, 
the country could not consent to fall back into the feudal 
disorder, from which it had been rescued by Richelieu. The 
people, quick to discern their own interest in a quarrel be- 
tween king and nobles, supported the government, and after 
a struggle of five years (1648-53) Mazarin reestablished 
peace and order. The Fronde 1 is the agony of the feudal 
nobility. To be sure, the nobles retained their vast estates 
and special privileges and continued to enjoy a splendid so- 
cial position, but they degenerated more and more into a 



1 The Fronde affords an interesting comparison with the civil war which 
was being waged contemporaneously in England. The English constitu- 
Monal movement was successful, whereas the French movement was not, 
(1) because the English Parliament represented the nation, which was 
not the case with the Parliament of Paris; (2) because the English aristoc- 
racy was law-abiding and patriotic ; and (3) because the English possessed 
political experience and had the moral force to hold fast to what they wanted. 



276 



The Ascendancy of France 



nerveless body of docile courtiers, content to squander their 
means and energies upon the dances and dinners of Ver- 
sailles. 

The Peace of Westphalia was an arrangement between 
France and the Austrian branch of the House of Hapsburg. 
Because the Spanish branch, although signally worsted by 
France in conjunction with the Dutch, was unwilling to come 
to terms, war between France and Spain continued after 
1648. When the Fronde broke out, the tables were turned, 
and the balance inclined for some years in favor of Spain; 
but as soon as the Fronde was beaten down, Mazarin was 
able to win back the lost ground and force Spain to terms. 
Owing to foreign war and internal revolution, Spain was, in 
fact, at her last gasp. When she signed with France the 
Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), sne signed away with it the 
last remnant of the supremacy which she had once exercised 
in Europe. France, the victor, took the place of Spain in the 
councils of the Continent, and signalized her triumph by 
acquiring certain territories, lying on the north or French 
slope of the Pyrenees (Roussillon), and by getting a more 
favorable boundary toward the Spanish Netherlands (Artois). 

With the glory of the Peace of the Pyrenees still lingering 
in the skies of France, Mazarin's life turned to its setting 
(1661). He will always be remembered among the great 
ministers of his adopted country. The young sovereign, 
Louis XIV., now stepped forward to take the government in 
hand, but when he announced with quiet pride that he would 
henceforth be his own prime minister, many smiled and 
doubted. But he kept his word, and while he lived the 
varied business of the French Government was transacted 
practically by himself. He is said to have boasted once: 
Vetat c'est moi (I am the state). Whether the phrase is his or 
not, it expresses admirably the spirit of his reign, for he held 
himself to be the absolute head of the state, and regarded 



Under Louis XIV. 277 

his ministers not as the responsible heads of departments, 
but as clerks. It is characteristic that the sun was his fa- 
vorite emblem, because he was pleased to imagine that as 
the earth drew its sustenance from the central luminary, 
so the life of France emanated from himself. Le roi-soleil 
(sun-king) was the title given him by idolizing courtiers. 
Absolutism, that is, monarchy strengthened by the ruin of 
the feudal powers, existed in Europe long before Louis XIV., 
but the French sovereign now hedged it round with a jjpe*. 
ciaL^isaity. He taught and put in practice the doctrine 
that a king was the plenipotentiary of God, and was like 
the rest of mankind only in his mortality. With this ex- 
alted idea in his mind Louis was convinced that his only 
fit background was not the French metropolis and capital, 
but a special residence or court. By means of his court, 
which he located at Versailles, where a whole royal city Louis and the 
sprang into being at his fiat, he was removed from contact Versailles, 
with the common herd, and could surround himself, like an 
Oriental divinity, with acolytes and worshippers. Every- 
body knows how Versailles aroused the admiration and envy 
of the world. That was not so much because of its, after all, 
trivial splendors, but because its central idol was, in the 
words of a contemporary, "the greatest actor of majesty 
that ever filled a throne." 

But strong and omnipresent as the ceremonial element was Perfection of 
. T . , , . . , . „. , . ij- administration, 

in Louis s conception of his ornce, he was not, as already in- 
dicated, merely an ornamental sovereign. Although but a 
commonplace man, ignorant and superstitious, he had a 
high sense of order and completeness, which enabled him to 
carry Richelieu's reorganization of France a considerable 
step forward. The complex administration of government 
was carefully divided into departments, and the diplomatic 
service, the army and navy reached a high degree of effi- 
ciency. But the most original work was done in the field of 



278 



The Ascendancy of France 



The economic 
policy of 
Colbert. 



Louis becomes 
a conqueror. 



finance under the guidance of the tireless Colbert. Colbert 
(1619-83) had no sooner been put in control of the treas- 
ury department than he made an end of the customary care- 
lessness and peculation and turned the annual deficit into a 
surplus. 

But Colbert — and here lies his peculiar distinction — was 
more than a good financier; he was ra«--ecenomie^thinker» 
With the science of political economy as yet unborn, it was 
a decided step forward when Colbert arrived at the conclu- 
sion that the question of revenues must be considered in 
connection with the whole problem of production, and that 
the primary object of a good minister of finance should be 
the increase of the total wealth of the nation. Colbert there- 
fore undertook to foster agriculture, manufactures, and com- 
merce. He applied to his country the system known in our 
own day as protection, encouraging exportation, and dis- 
couraging the importation of foreign products by means of 
a tariff. French manufactures were greatly stimulated, and 
such articles as silks, brocades, laces, and glass acquired a 
merited popularity in the markets of the world. Excellent 
roads and canals, the necessary avenues of commerce, were 
constructed in all directions, and a creditable colonial activ- 
ity was unfolded in the West Indies, Louisiana, and India. 
In a word, France seemed intent, in the early years of Louis 
XIV., on matching the political and military supremacy al- 
ready attained, with the more substantial supremacy which 
is the result of a long period of commercial and industrial 
activity. 

Unfortunately, the splendid Louis was not attracted by 
the picture of a reign of bourgeois prosperity. Though but 
a young man, he was already the cynosure of Europe. In 
all truth he could say that he was the first power of the world. 
But in measure as he found that his neighbors were no match 
for him, he began to be tempted by the thought of making 




EWS-NOFTTHRUP WOWS. 



Under Louis XIV. 279 

them his dependents. It was not a high ambition, this, still 
it won the day with him. In the year 1667, therefore, Louis 
entered upon a career of aggression and conquest, which, af- 
ter a few brilliant results, led to such a succession of disas- 
ters that the man whose progress had been attended by clouds 
of incense wafted by admiring courtiers, closed his career in 
ignominy. 

Four great wars substantially filled the rest of Louis's life. His wars. 
They were: (1) A War with Spain for the possession of the 
Spanish Netherlands (1667-68); (2) the War with the Dutch 
(1672-78); (3) the War of the Palatinate (1688-97); (4) the 
War of the Spanish Succession (1 701-14). 

When Louis, in the year 1667, surveyed the political situ- Louis antago- 
ation, and noting his own resources and the weakness of mzes urope- 
his neighbors, resolved on a war of conquest, he must have 
debated carefully whither he had best move. He decided 
finally that it would be wisest to extend the French boun- 
daries toward the east. Spain, intrenched in the Spanish 
Netherlands, seemed moribund, and, besides, France needed 
to be strengthened, most of all, on this side. By choosing 
to expand eastward, however, he was bound to antagonize 
the three countries which were directly threatened by this 
move — Spain, the Dutch, and Germany. Sooner or later, 
tco, he was likely to arouse the jealousy of the ancient rival 
of France, England. Did Louis, when he began war so 
lightly, reckon with the chance of a European coalition 
against him? Probably not. He saw only the contempo- 
rary divisions of Europe and his own brilliant opportunity, 
and like every other adventurer he let the future take care 
of itself. 

In 1667 Louis suddenly invaded the Spanish Netherlands. The War of the 
The fact that he tried to justify himself by putting forth some e riands, 
very doubtful claims of his Spanish wife, daughter of Philip l6o 7-°8. 
IV., to these territories, only added hypocrisy to violence. 



28o 



The Ascendancy of France 



His well-appointed army took place after place. Spain was 
too weak to offer resistance, and if the Dutch, frightened at 
the prospect of such a neighbor as Louis, had not bestirred 
themselves, Louis would have overrun all the Spanish Neth- 
erlands. The Triple Alliance of the Dutch, England, and 
Sweden, formed by the rapid ingenuity of the republican 
patriot, John de Witt, who was at this time the leading spirit 
of the Dutch Government, bade Louis halt. Louis, on oc- 
casion, could distinguish the possible from the impossible. 
In answer to the threat of the Triple Alliance, he declared 
himself satisfied with a frontier strip, and retired. The 
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) formally secured him in 
his bold acquisition (1668). 

For the next few years Louis seemed to be dominated by 
a single thought — revenge upon the Dutch. The Dutch had 
been the soul of the Triple Alliance; the Dutch primarily 
hindered his expansion eastward. The plan he now formed 
was to sever the Dutch from all their friends and allies, and 
then fall upon them unawares. The diplomatic campaign 
preliminary to the declaration of war was crowned with 
complete success. Sweden and the emperor were secured 
by treaties of neutrality, and the despicable Charles II., by 
the Treaty of Dover (1670), was even pledged to join the 
forces of England with the French in the proposed war. In 
the spring of 1672 everything was ready. While the com- 
bined French and English fleets engaged the Dutch fleet un- 
der the celebrated Admiral Ruyter in the Channel, the French 
army, led by Conde and Turenne, invaded the territory of 
the Seven United Provinces by following the course of the 
Rhine. 

In a few weeks most of the provinces, owing to the decay 
into which the too secure de Witt had permitted the army 
and fortresses to fall, were in the hands of the French. And 
now a terrible indignation swept over the alarmed people. 



Under Louis XIV. 281 

They fell upon and murdered de Witt, and would be satis- 
fied with nothing less than the triumphant reinstatement of 
the House of Orange, which, at the close of the Spanish war, 
the republican party, largely at the prompting of de Witt, . 
had banished from the public service. In an outburst of en- 
thusiasm William III. of Orange was made Stadtholder and 
supreme commander on sea and land. William, a young The character 
man but twenty-one years of age, was far from being a gen- ° iam " 
ius, but he was sprung from heroic stock, and the responsi- 
bility for a nation's safekeeping, put upon him in a stern 
crisis, brought out his best qualities. The English am- 
bassador invited him to look about him and submit, urging 
that it was easy to see that the Dutch were lost. "I know 
one means of never seeing it," he replied, "to die on the last 
dyke." It was this spirit that now steeled the temper of the 
little people and enabled them to emulate the deeds of their 
ancestors against Spain. 

Before Louis could take the heart of the Netherlands, the The Dutch 

■ » W3X becomes 

city of Amsterdam, the Dutch had, at the order of William, general. 
cut the dykes and restored their country to the original 
dominion of the waters. Louis found himself checked; his 
opportunity was lost. But Europe was now thoroughly 
aroused, and before many months had passed, there had ral- 
lied to the cause of the Dutch the emperor, -the -states -of the 
Empire, and Spain. In the year 1674 the position of Louis 
was still further weakened. In that year the state of Eng- 
lish public opinion forced Charles II. to abandon Louis and 
make his peace with the Dutch. Louis was thereupon left 
to face a great continental coalition, with no ally but remote 
Sweden. The odds in a struggle with all Europe were pat- 
ently against Louis, and although the superiority of French 
organization and French generalship enabled him to win 
every pitched battle with his foes, he was glad enough to end 
the war when peace was offered. By the Treaty of Nim- 



282 



The Ascendancy of France 



Louis takes 
Strasburg. 



The Revoca- 
tion of the 
Edict of 
Nantes, 1685. 



wegen (1678) he had to acknowledge his failure in his main 
purpose, for the Dutch did not lose a foot of territory, but he 
was permitted, in recognition of his military successes, to 
incorporate the Franche Comte, a detached eastern posses- 
sion of the king of Spain, with France. 

The second war, too, although it had roused a European 
alliance against Louis, had brought him its prize of a new 
province. Louis was now at the zenith of his glory. The 
adulation of his court became more and more slavish, until 
the flattered monarch imagined that he could do everything 
with impunity. His imperious temper is well exhibited by 
an event of the year 1681. In a period of complete peace 
he fell upon the city of Strasburg, the last stronghold of the 
Empire in Alsace, and incorporated it with France. 

The bigotry which had been inculcated in the king 
from his youth, grew confirmed as he entered middle life, 
and now involved him in a monstrous action. Originally 
frivolous and pleasure-loving, he had, as the doors of young 
manhood closed upon him, fallen under the influence of a 
devout Catholic lady, Madame de Maintenon, the gover- 
ness of some of his children. To Madame de Maintenon 
the eradication of heresy was a noble work, and Louis, tak- 
ing the cue from her, began gradually to persecute the Prot- 
estants. At first, innocently enough, rewards were offered 
to voluntary converts. Then the government proceeded to 
take more drastic measures; wherever Huguenots refused, on 
summons, to become Catholics, rough dragoons were quar- 
tered on them until the wild soldiery had produced pliancy. 
These barbarities became known as dragonnades . Finally, 
in 1685, two years after Louis had by formal marriage with 
Madame de Maintenon, who thus became his second wife, 
thoroughly committed himself to her ideas, he revoked the 
Edict of Nantes, by virtue of which the Huguenots had en- 
joyed a partial freedom of worship for almost one hundred 



Under Louis XIV. 283 

years. Therewith the Protestant faith was proscribed within 
the boundaries of France. The blow which this insane 
measure struck the prosperity of the country was more 
injurious than a disastrous war. Thousands of Huguenots 
— the lowest estimate speaks of fifty thousand families — fled 
across the border and carried their industry, their capital, 1 
and their civilization to the rivals and enemies of France — 
chiefly to Holland, America, and Prussia. 

The occupation of Strasburg and the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes were events belonging to an interval of 
peace. But Louis was already planning a new war. When 
his preparations became known, the emperor, the Dutch, 
and Spain concluded, at the instigation of William of Orange, England joins 
a new alliance. Happily, before the war had well begun, a a gSnst Louis. 
lucky chance won England for the allies. In 1688 James 
II., who, like his brother, Charles II., was inclined to live on 
friendly terms with Louis, was overthrown by the "Glorious 
Revolution," and William of Orange became king of Eng- 
land. As the temper of the English people had at the same 
time become thoroughly anti-French, William had no diffi- 
culty in persuading them to join Europe against the French 
monarch. Thus in the new war — called the War of the Pa- 
latinate, from the double fact that Louis claimed the Palat- 
inate and that the war began with a terrible harrying by fire 
and sword of that poor Rhenish land — Louis was absolutely 
without a friend. 

This third war (1688-97) is, for the general student, The War of 
thoroughly unmemorable. Battles were fought on land and I 688-o7. ma ei 
on sea, in the Channel, in the Netherlands, and along the 
Rhine, and, generally speaking, the French proved their old 

' The industry and the capital of the Huguenots are not mere phrases. 
The Huguenots, who belonged largely to the middle classes, were the hardest 
workers of the time, largely through the direct influence of Calvin. Calvin 
interpreted the commandment, " Six days shalt thou labor," literally, and 
abandoned the dozens of holidays which obliged Catholic workmen to be 
idle a good part of the year. 



284 



The Ascendancy of France 



The Spanish 
inheritance. 



Louis signs 
and rejects 
the Partition 
Treaty. 



superiority; but they were not strong enough to reap any ben- 
efit from their successes against the rest of Europe, and in 
1697 a ^ the combatants from mere exhaustion were glad to 
sign, on the basis of mutual restitutions, the Peace of Rys- 
wick. 

The War of the Palatinate was the first war by which 
Louis had gained nothing. That and the circumstance that 
England had now definitely joined the ranks of his enemies, 
should have served him as a warning that the tide had 
turned. And perhaps he would not have been so unmind- 
ful of the hostility of Europe if there had not opened for 
him at this time a peculiarly tempting prospect. The king 
of Spain, Charles II., had no direct heir, and at his death, 
which might occur at any time, the vast Spanish dominion 
— Spain and her colonies, Naples and Milan, the Spanish 
Netherlands — would fall no one knew to whom. The Aus- 
trian branch of Hapsburg put forth a claim, but Louis fan- 
cied that his children had a better title still in right of his 
first wife, who was the oldest sister of the Spanish king. 
The matter was so involved legally that it is impossible to 
say to this day where the better right lay. 

Louis was now old enough to have grown cautious, and 
wisely proposed to his chief adversary, William III., to come 
to some arrangement with him over the Spanish inheritance 
by which war might be averted. Accordingly, the two lead- 
ing powers of Europe pledged themselves to a plan of par- 
tition as the most plausible settlement of the impending 
difficulties. But when, on the death of Charles II., Novem- 
ber, 1700, it was found that the Spanish king had made a 
will in favor of Philip, the duke of Anjou, one of Louis's 
younger grandsons, Louis, intoxicated by the prospect, for- 
got his obligations and threw the Partition Treaty to the 
winds. He sent young Philip to Madrid to assume the 
rule of the undivided dominion of Spain. The House of 



Under Louis XIV. 285 

Bourbon now ruled the whole European west. "There are 
no longer any Pyrenees," were Louis's exultant words. 

It was some time before Europe recovered from the shock 
of its surprise over this bold step and nerved itself to a re- 
sistance. The hoodwinked and angered William was inde- 
fatigable in arousing the Dutch and English, and at last, in 
1 701, succeeded in creating the so-called Grand Alliance, The Grand 
composed of the emperor, England, the Dutch, and the lead- ance * 
ing German princes. Before the war had fairly begun, how- 
ever, William, the stubborn, life-long enemy of Louis, had 
died (March, 1702). In the war which was just then break- 
ing out and is called the War of the Spanish Succession 
(1702-14), it is not merely fanciful to discover his spirit 
pervading the camps and marching with the hosts of the 
allies. 

In the new war the position of Louis was more favorable The com- 
than it had been in the preceding struggle. He commanded p^edf ° 0m " 
the resources not only of France but also of Spain; his sol- 
diers carried themselves with the assurance of troops who 
had never been beaten; and his armies had the advan- 
tage of being under his single direction. The allies, on the 
other hand, were necessarily divided in council and interest. 
What advantages they had lay in these two circumstances, 
which in the end proved decisive: they possessed greater re- 
sources of money and men, and they developed superior 
commanders. The brilliant French generals, Conde and 
Turenne, were now dead, and their successors, with the ex- 
ception of Vauban, the inventor of the modern system of 
fortification, and the intrepid Villars, were all, like Louis 
himself, without a spark of fire and originality. In the high- 
est commands, where France was weak, England and Aus- 
tria on the other hand proved themselves particularly strong. 
They developed in the duke of Marlborough and in Eugene, 
prince of Savoy, two eminent commanders. 



286 



The Ascendancy of France 



The War of the 
Spanish Suc- 
cession is a 
world struggle. 



The victories 
of Eugene and 
Marlborough. 



A Tory minis- 
try succeeds 
the Whigs. 



Not even the Thirty Years' War assumed such propor- 
tions as the struggle in which Europe now engaged. It was 
literally universal, and raged, at one and the same time, at 
all the exposed points of the French-Spanish possessions, 
that is, in the Spanish Netherlands, along the upper Rhine, 
in Italy, in Spain itself (where the Hapsburg claimant, the 
Archduke Charles, strove to drive out the Bourbon king, 
Philip V.), on the sea, and in the colonies of North America. 
The details of this gigantic struggle have no place here. We 
must content ourselves with noting the striking military ac- 
tions and the final settlement. 

The first great battle of the war occurred in 1704 at Blen- 
heim, on the upper Danube. The battle of Blenheim was 
the result of a bold strategical move of Marlborough, straight 
across western Germany, in order to save Vienna from a 
well-planned attack of the French. Joining with Eugene 
and bringing the French to bay, Marlborough captured or 
cut to pieces the forces of the enemy. At Blenheim the long 
chain of French victories was broken, and two new names 
were added to the roster of great generals. In 1706 Marl- 
borough won a splendid victory at Ramillies, in the Nether- 
lands, and in the same year Eugene defeated the French at 
Turin and drove them out of Italy. These signal suc- 
cesses were followed in the years 1708 and 1709 by two 
great victories along the French frontier at Oudenarde and 
Malplaquet. Oudenarde and Malplaquet left France pros 
trate, and seemed to open up the road to Paris. 

The road to Paris, however, owing to a number of un- 
expected occurrences, which utterly changed the face of 
European politics, was never taken. In 17 10 the hold of 
the Whig ministry in England, which had supported Marl- 
borough and advocated the war, was shaken, and shortly 
after a Tory ministry, in favor of peace at any price, suc- 
ceeded. While Marlborough's actions in the field were 



Under Louis XIV. 287 

thus paralyzed, there fell from another quarter a second 
and a finishing blow. 

In 1 7 1 1 the Emperor Joseph died, and was succeeded by The death of 
his brother, Charles VI. As Charles was also the candidate j^^ T 
of the Grand Alliance for the Spanish throne, the death 
of Joseph held out the prospect of the reunion of the vast 
Hapsburg dominion in one hand, as in the time of Charles 
V. Such a development did not lie in the interests of Eng- 
land and the Dutch, and these two nations now began to 
withdraw from the Grand Alliance and urge a settlement with 
the French. Louis, who was utterly exhausted and broken 
by defeat, met them more than half way. In 17 13 the Peace 
of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession. 

By the Peace of Utrecht the Spanish dominions were The Peace of 
divided. Everybody managed to get some share in the re ' 1 ' 13 ' 
booty. First, Philip V., Louis's grandson, was recognized 
as king of Spain and her colonies, on condition that France 
and Spain would remain forever separated. In a limited 
sense, therefore, Louis's policy had triumphed, for a Bour- 
bon sat upon the Spanish throne. Next, the emperor was 
provided for; he received the bulk of the Italian posses- 
sions (Milan, Naples, and Sardinia), together with the Span- 
ish Netherlands (henceforth Austrian Netherlands). The 
Dutch were appeased with a number of border fortresses 
in the Austrian Netherlands, as a military barrier against 
France; and England took some of the French possessions 
in the New World, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia (Acadia), 
and Hudson's Bay, together with the island of Minorca and 
the rock of Gibraltar, which gave her the command of the 
Mediterranean Sea. The ambitious and dissatisfied em- 
peror refused, at first, to accept this peace, but he was forced 
to give way and confirm its leading arrangements by the 
Peace of Rastadt (17 14). 

Shortly after the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt, Louis Louis's death. 



288 



The Ascendancy of France 



The domi- 
nance of 
French civili- 
zation. 



The bloom of 
French litera- 
ture. 



XIV. died (September, 17 15). The material prosperity of 
his early years had vanished, and in their place his failing 
eyes fell upon a famished peasantry and a government 
breaking down under its burden of debt. The disastrous 
end was the answer of fate to his foolish ambition. " I have 
made too many wars," the dying king admitted; "do not imi- 
tate me in that respect," he said, turning to his little heir. But 
to his contemporaries he remained to the day of his passing 
the grand monarque; and that title is a good summary of him 
as he appears in history, for it conveys the impression of a 
splendor which is not without the suspicion of hollo wness. 

The brilliancy which Louis's long reign lent France cast 
a spell upon the rest of the world. Louis's court became 
the model court of Europe, and the so-called good society, 
the world over, adopted, for more than a century, the 
French tongue, French manners, French fashions, and 
French art. That such mere imitation could bring other 
nations no solid cultural advantages goes without saying, 
but it is necessary to recognize that French civilization un- 
der Louis must have possessed an irresistible charm to 
have excited such universal admiration. 

Under Louis French literature unfolded a wealth of 
blossoms. It is the period of French classicism, a period, 
that is, of self-restraint and voluntary subjection to rules. 
Literature, always a perfect mirror of society, naturally 
assumed the majestic tone which ruled at Versailles, and 
prided itself on outward glitter and formal finish. But 
beneath this more or less artificial note sound, in the case 
at least of the leaders, the sincerity and conviction which are 
the constant characteristics of true art. France, modern 
France, France of the coming centuries, may point proudly 
to her tragic poets, Corneille (d. 1684) and Racine (d. 
1699), and may always turn for refreshment and entertain- 
ment to the comedies of her inimitable Moliere (d. 1673). 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE RISE OF RUSSIA AND THE DECLINE OF SWEDEN 

References: Wakeman, Ascendancy of France, pp. 165- 
72, 180-83, 289-308; Hassall, The Balance of Power, 
Chapters V., XL, XIII.; Rambaud, History of Russia, 
Vol. II., Chapters I.-IV.; Morfill, Russia; Walis- 
zewski, Peter the Great; Nisbet Bain, Charles XII. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Chapter XXXII., 
Sections 1, 2, 3. 

The Russians, the leading branch of the Slav family, The Russians* 
took possession, in the period of the great migrations, of the christian, 
wide plains of eastern Europe where they still reside. In 
the tenth century they became converted to Christianity 
by Greek missionaries, with the result that they have ever 
since been passionately attached to the Greek Orthodox 
Church, which held in the east the same commanding po- 
sition occupied by the Roman Church in the west. They 
had not advanced far upon the road of civilization when a 
great calamity overtook them, for in the thirteenth century 
they were conquered by Asiatic Mongols or Tartars, whose 
yoke they did not entirely cast off until the beginning of the 
Modern Period. Under Ivan III. (1462-1505) and Ivan 
IV. (1547-84) the power of the monarch was greatly in- 
creased until he became almost absolute, and assumed, in 
witness of his position, the proud title of Caesar or Czar, 
On the death of Ivan IV., called the Terrible, Russia was 
plunged into a sea of domestic troubles, out of which she 
was rescued in 1613 by the election to the sovereignty of 

28q. 



290 



The Rise of Russia 



Poles and 
Swedes, the 
natural 
enemies of 
Russia. 



Czar Peter. 



The situation 
uf Russia. 



a native nobleman, Michael Romanoff. Michael was the 
first Czar of the dynasty which ruled in Russia till 191 7. 

The first business of the House of Romanoff was to drive, 
back the western neighbors, the Poles, who had taken ad- 
vantage of the late civil troubles to appropriate Russian 
territory. The Czars had engaged in this task with some 
success when they found themselves confronted with another 
and far more formidable power, Sweden . Sweden being at 
that time the great Baltic state, a struggle was inevitable as 
soon as Russia resolved to get a foothold on what Sweden 
regarded as her sea. And that brings us to Peter. 

Czar Peter is the glory of the House of Romanoff. To- 
gether with an older brother, Ivan, he succeeded to the throne 
in the year 1682. However, as the brothers were still too 
young to rule, a regency was established under an older sister, 
Sophia. Peter, a masterful lad, accepted the situation until 
1689, when, being seventeen years old, he took the gov- 
ernment into his own hands and sent Sophia to a nunnery. 
As Czar Ivan was a weak and brainless creature, his ex- 
istence for the few more years that he lived was no check 
upon Peter's autocratic control. 

In order to understand Peter's activity it is necessary to 
grasp the chief factors of the Russian situation at the time 
of his accession. In the second half of the seventeenth 
century the Russians were in life and manners an Asiatic 
people, connected with European culture solely by the two 
bonds of their Aryan blood and their Christian faith. Polit- 
ically their association with Europe was very slight. Their 
state was of vast extent, comprising the plain of the Volga and 
including a large part of northern Asia or Siberia, but was so 
cooped in on the west and south by a ring of great powers — 
Persia, Turkey, Poland, and Sweden — that it was practically 
an inland monarchy without a gate upon any sea which 
might throw open to it the highways of the world. Finally, 



And the Decline of Sweden 291 

let us understand the Russian constitution. The Czar was 
on the way toward absolutism, but there still existed some 
checks upon his power — (1) the patriarch, the head of the 
Church, who exercised great influence in religious matters, 
and (2) the Streltsi, the Czar's body-guard, who, because they 
leaned upon the nobility and were a privileged force, felt 
inclined to regard themselves as superior to their master. 

This situation Peter soon seized with a statesmanlike Peter's policy 
grasp, and moulded, through the efforts of a long rule, to his 
own purposes. He set himself, in the main, three aims, and 
met in all a degree of success which is fairly astonishing: 
he resolved to make the culture connection between Russia 
and Europe strong and intimate by opening the door to 
European civilization; he labored to open a way to the west 
by gaining a foothold on the Black and fialtic Seas; and 
lastly, he planned to rid himself of the restraint put upon his 
authority by the patriarch and the Streltsi. 

Peter is a difficult person for a modern man to understand. Peter's char- 
On one occasion he appears as a murderer, on another as a ac en 
monster of sensuality, and on still another as one of nature's 
noblemen. We have the key to his character when we re- 
member that he was a barbarian of genius — never anything 
more. Civilized standards applied to him are unjust and 
futile. Barbarity was an element of his blood, and all his 
strenuous, life-long aspirations for the nobler possessions of 
the mind never diminished his natural savagery. Therefore, 
his life is full of the strangest contrasts. With barbarian 
eagerness he appropriated everything that he encountered, 
good and evil alike, and surrendered himself, for the time 
being, to its sway with all his might. Certainly his dis- 
tinguishing characteristic is an indomitable energy; his life 
burned at a white heat. 

Peter's first chance to distinguish himself came in the Peter's first 
year 1695. The Emperor Leopold was aj; that time waging A^ es 



292 



The Rise of Russia 



war against the Turks, who were beginning to show the 
first symptoms of collapse. Seeing his opportunity, Peter 
resolved to make use of their embarrassment to acquire a 
southern outlet for Russia, and in 1696 conquered the Port 
of Azov, on the Black Sea. The future now opened more 
confidently to him, and before taking another step he 
determined to visit the west and study the wonders of its 
civilization with his own eyes. 

Peter spent the year 1697-98 in travel through Germany, 
Holland, and England. The journey, undertaken with a 
large suite of fellow-students like himself, was meant purely 
as a voyage of instruction. Throughout its course Peter 
was indefatigable in his efforts to get at the bottom of 
things, at the methods of western government, at the 
sources of western wealth, at the systems of western trade 
and manufacture. "My part is to learn," is the motto 
encircling the seal which he had struck for this voyage. In 
Holland he hired himself out for a time as a common ship- 
carpenter, ships having been a passion with him from his 
boyhood. In addition he attended surgical lectures, visited 
paper-mills, flour-mills, printing-presses, in short was un- 
tiring in his efforts to assimilate not a part but the whole 
of western civilization. In England King William received 
him with especial cordiality and assisted him in every way 
in the prosecution of his studies. The rough Peter was the 
joke of the day among the courtiers and dandies, but honest 
folk were spurred to interest by this enthusiastic worker, 
who balked at no drudgery to fit himself for the task of up- 
lifting his backward people. 

The opportunity for putting the results of his trip to 
the test of practice came sooner than Peter expected. At 
Vienna he heard that the Streltsi had revolted. He set out 
post-haste for home, established order, and then took a fear- 
ful vengeance. Over a thousand of the luckless guards were 



And the Decline of Sweden 293 

executed with terrible tortures. Rumor reports that Peter 
in his savage fury himself played the headsman. Sovereign 
and executioner — such accumulation of offices in one hand 
clearly exhibits the chasm that then yawned between Europe 
and Russia. But no one will deny that there was method in 
Peter's madness. The Streltsi, who were affiliated with the 
nobility, had been a constant centre of disaffection, and now 
was the time, as Peter clearly saw, to get rid of them. Such 
as were not executed were dismissed, and the troop was 
replaced by a regular army, organized on the European 
pattern and dependent on the Czar. 

Peter's reforms now crowded thick and fast. Every bar- Peter's re- 

forms* 

rier was levelled to facilitate the invasion of western influ- 
ences. He invited colonists, mechanics, and shipwrights to 
settle_irj_-Russia. He introduced western dress. He dis- 
couraged the wearing of beards, although they enjoyed the 
sanction of the Church, and, armed with a pair of scissors, 
occasionally with his own imperial hand practised the bar- 
ber's art upon his subjects. But by such measures he 
clashed with the most cherished superstitions of his people, 
and the clergy, the natural centre of conservatism, became 
increasingly suspicious of his policy. As their discontent 
was a danger to the throne and a hindrance to reforms, the 
Czar resolved to make them more dependent on himself. 
When the patriarch died in 1700, Peter committed his func- 
tions to a synod which he himself appointed and controlled, 
and thus the Czar became the head of the Church as he 
already was the head of the state. 

After his return from the west, Peter was more desirous The inevitable 
than ever of gaining a hold on the Baltic. Azov, on the Sweden. 
Black Sea, was worth little to him as long as the Turks held 
the Dardanelles. The west, it was clear, could be best 
gained by the northern route. But the enterprise was far 
from easy. The Baltic coast was largely held by Sweden, 



294 



The Rise of Russia 



The greatness 
of Sweden. 



Charles XII. 



and Sweden, the leading power of the north, was prepared 
to resist with energy any attempt to displace her. 

The rise of Sweden to the position of the leading Baltic 
power dates from the heroic time of Gustavus Adolphus 
(i 611-32). Gustavus extended his rule over the northern 
and eastern shores of the Baltic, and through his successful 
interference in the Thirty Years' War, his daughter Chris- 
tina, who succeeded him, acquired, as her share in the Ger- 
man booty, western Pomerania and the land at the mouth of 
the Weser and the Elbe (Treaty of Westphalia, 1648). For 
a short time now Sweden took rank with the great powers 
of Europe. Unfortunately for her, her greatness was the 
result not of her wealth and civilization, but of her military 
prowess; and, as experience proves, a military greatness 
rests on precarious foundations. A weak, unmilitary ruler, 
or a military adventurer who overstrains the bow, may un- 
dermine it. Generally speaking the successors of Gusta- 
vus were capable sovereigns, but they injured and antag- 
onized so many interests that it was only a question of time 
when their neighbors would combine against them. Den- 
mark to the west, Brandenburg-Prussia to the south, Poland 
and Russia to the east, had all paid for Sweden's great- 
ness with severe losses, and nursed a corresponding grudge 
against her. The long-awaited opportunity for revenge 
seemed at length to have arrived, when in the year 1697, 
Charles XII., a boy of fifteen, came to the throne. His 
youth and inexperience appeared to mark him as an easy 
victim, and Denmark, Poland, and Russia formed a league 
against him to recover their lost territories (1700). 

The allies had, however, made their reckoning without 
the host. Charles XII. turned out, in spite of his youth, to 
be the most warlike member of a warlike race — a perfect 
fighting demon. But aside from his unflinching courage he 
lacked almost every virtue of a ruler. Of a proud and ob- 




GERMAN EMPIRE 
Sweden 1524 

Acquisitions ofEric X1V.(1560-6S) 
Acquisitions of Guslavns Adolnhus- 

(1611-32)and Christina (1632-5-1) 
Acquisitions of Charles X. (1654-60) 



NOTE TO THE STUDENT 

1) Follow the expansion of Sweden from her independence 
(1524). Eric XIV. acquired Esthonia (1561). Gustavus 
Adolphus and his daughter Christina acquired Carelia, 
Ingermanland, Livonia, Western Pomerania, the 
bishopries Bremen and Verden, Gotland (island) and 
Jemtland. Charles X. acquired the southern tip of the 
peninsula (1658). 2) Then trace the losses belonging to 
the time of Charles XII.' The year of acquisition is given 
in bold type while the year of loss follows in brackets. 
The treaty of Nystad (1721 ) makes Russia a Baltic power. 



10 



Longitude 15° 



And the Decline of Sweden 295 

stinate nature he was never governed by a consideration of 
the welfare of his people, but always shaped his policy by 
his own romantic notions of honor. He was Don Quixote 
promoted to a throne, and though he could fight with ad- 
mirable fury against windmills, he could not govern and he 
could not build. In the year 1700 his full character was not 
yet revealed, and people stopped open-mouthed with wonder, 
as he went up in splendor, like a rocket, in the north. 

Before the coalition was ready to strike, young Charles His marvel- 
gathered his forces and fell upon the enemy. As the armies ( f U I s 7 o^ [lpai8n 
of Denmark, Poland, and Russia were necessarily, widely 
separated, he calculated that if he could meet them in turn, 
the likelihood of victory would be much increased. He laid 
his plans accordingly. In the spring of 1700 he suddenly 
crossed the straits from Sweden and besieged Copenhagen. 
The king of Denmark, unprepared for so bold a step, 
had to give way and sign with Charles the Peace of Tra- 
vendal (August, 1700), in which he promised to remain 
neutral during the remainder of the war. The ink of his 
signature was hardly dry before Charles was off again 
like a flash. This time he sailed to the Gulf of Finland, 
where Peter with 50,000 men was besieging Narva. Charles 
at the head of only 8,000, advanced straightway to the attack, 
and his well-disciplined Swedes soon swept the confused 
masses of the ill-trained Russians off the field. On Peter's 
falling back into the interior, Charles was free to turn upon 
his last and most hated enemy, August the Strong, king of 
Poland, and before another year passed August, too, had 
been defeated. 

Thus far the war had been managed admirably. Charles He spoils all 
might have made his conditions and gone home. But pas- -Z&X. 
sionately obstinate, he was set on humiliating August, whom 
he regarded as the instigator of the alliance, and whom he 
determined to drive out of Poland altogether. The at- 



296 



The Rise of Russia 



tempt necessitated getting Poland into his hands, and proved 
so difficult that it led to the undoing of his first successes 
and, finally, to the ruin of his life. 

Poland was at this time in a condition hardly better than 
anarchy. The nobles had all the power and were sovereign 
on their own lands. The only remaining witnesses of a 
previous unity were a Diet, which never transacted any 
business, and an elected king, who was allowed no powe* 
and had nothing to do. In the year 1697 the Poles had even 
elected to the kingship a foreigner, August the Strong, elector 
of Saxony. Now when in the year 1701 King August was 
defeated by Charles, the majority of the Poles were glad 
rather than sorry, for August had engaged in the war with- 
out the consent of the Diet; but when Charles began making 
conquests in Poland, and insisted on forcing a monarch of 
his own choosing on the Poles, a national party naturally 
gathered around August, who, although a foreigner, was 
nevertheless the rightful king. 

For many years following the brilliant campaign of 1700 
Charles hunted August over the marshy and wooded plains 
of the Slav kingdom, but though always victorious, he could 
never quite succeed in utterly crushing his enemy. Even 
the capture of Warsaw and the elevation of his dependent, 
Stanislaus Lesczinski, to the Polish throne, did not change 
the situation. Finally, in 1706, Charles desperately plunged 
after August into Saxony, and forced him formally to abdi- 
cate the Polish crown. 

The vindictiveness of her sovereign was destined to cost 
Sweden dear. While Charles was squandering his strength 
upon a foolish enterprise, his neighbor, Peter, was making 
excellent use of his time. The lesson of Narva had not been 
lost upon him. He built up a disciplined army and gradu- 
ally occupied a considerable part of the Baltic coast. To 
show his confidence in the future, he founded in 1703, on 



Pultava. 



And the Decline of Sweden 297 

the banks of the Neva, a new capital and named it St. Pe- 
tersburg. Only in 1707, when he had wrung his peace from 
August, did the king of Sweden undertake to put a check on 
these Russian aggressions. To let Peter feel the whole 
weight of his sword, he marched against Moscow, but long 
before he reached that distant capital his ranks were thinned 
by the rigors of the Russian winter and decimated by disease. 
When Peter came up with Charles at Pultava (1709), the The verdict of 
Swedes fought with their accustomed bravery, but their 
sufferings had worn them out. And now Narva was avenged. 
The Swedish army was literally destroyed, and Charles, 
accompanied by a few hundred horsemen, barely succeeded 
in making his escape to Turkey. The verdict of Pultava 
was destined to be final. Sweden stepped down from her 
proud position, and a new power, Russia, henceforth ruled 
in the north. 

As for Charles, the Sultan received the famous warrior Charles in 
hospitably and offered him Bender for a residence. There 
Charles remained five years — long enough to make Bender 
the name of one of the maddest chapters of his adventurous 
career. He immediately set his chief aim upon dragging 
Turkey into a war with Peter, but not till 1711 did the 
Sultan yield to the importunate pleader. A lucky campaign 
was about to deliver Peter into Charles's hands, when the 
Grand Vizier, who led the Turkish forces, accepted a bribe, 
and opening a lane let Peter's forces slip out of the trap 
into which they had blindly plunged. His unfortunate ex- 
perience merely cost Peter Azov on the Black Sea. The 
disappointed Charles raved like a madman on seeing his foe 
escape, and when the Sultan, tired of the impertinence of the 
eternal meddler, requested him a little later to leave his 
territory, Charles obstinately refused to budge. It took a 
regular siege to bring him to understand that his entertain- 
ment in Turkey was over, and even then he fought like a 



Turkey. 



298 



The Rise of Russia 



Sweden sur- 
renders much 
of her Baltic 
territory. 



Peter and the 
Russian op- 
position. 



maniac upon the roof of his burning house until he fell 
senseless amid the debris. At length, after an absence of 
five years, he turned his face homeward (17 14). 

Charles returned too late to stem the ebb of Swedish 
power, for the surrounding states had taken advantage of the 
king's long absence to help themselves to whatever territories 
they coveted, fie met his foes with his accustomed valor, 
but his country was exhausted and his people alienated. In 
1 7 18, during his siege of Frederikshald in Norway, he was 
shot while riding out to reconnoitre the position of the 
enemy. His sister, Ulrica Eleanor, who succeeded him, was 
compelled by the aristocratic party to agree to a serious 
limitation of the royal prerogative. Then the tired Swedes 
hastened to sign a peace with their enemies. The German 
states of Hanover and Prussia acquired payments out of 
the Swedish provinces in Germany, Hanover getting Bremen 
and Verden, Prussia part of Pomerania; August the Strong 
was recognized as king of Poland; but Peter, who had 
contributed most to the defeat of Charles, got, too, by the 
Treaty of Nystadt (1721), the lion's share of the booty. 
He had handed over to him Carelia, Ingria, Esthonia, and 
Livonia — in fact, all the Swedish possessions of the eastern 
Baltic except Finland. 

Peter was now nearing the end of his reign. His rule had 
brought Russia a new splendor, but he was not spared pain 
and chagrin. For one thing his efforts in behalf of Russian 
civilization were resisted by the Russians themselves, and a 
secret party of hide-bound conservatives looked fervently 
forward to the time of the accession of Peter's sen and 
heir, Alexis. Alexis, for his part, shunned no trouble to 
exhibit his sympathy with the cause of reaction. With a 
heavy heart Peter had to face the possibility of a successor 
who would undo his cherished life-work. For years he took 
pains to win Alexis over to his views, but when his efforts 



And the Decline of Sweden 299 

proved without avail, he resolved, for the sake of the state, 
to deprive his son of the crown. The resolution we may- 
praise, the method was terrible. It exhibited once more all 
of Peter's latent savagery. The Czarowitz died under the 
knout (17 18), and the accounts which have come down to us 
make it probable that Peter had more than a passive share 
in his torture and execution. 

When Peter died (1725), it seemed for a time as if Russia Catherine!!, 
would return to her former Asiatic condition. The govern- 
ment fell into the hands of a succession of dissolute, in- 
competent Czarinas, who let their favorites plunder the 
treasury and made Russia a byword in Europe, until the 
accession in 1762 of Catherine II. Catherine, by birth a 
petty princess of Germany, came to Russia as the wife of 
the heir-apparent, Peter. She was not only intelligent and 
energetic, but also wholly unscrupulous, and shortly after 
Peter, who was crotchety and half insane, had ascended the 
throne (1762), she led a revolution against him, in the course 
of which he was dethroned and murdered. Although she 
thus acquired the supreme power by means of a crime, once 
in possession of it she wielded it with consummate skill. 
Being of western birth, she naturally favored western civiliza- 
tion. Peter the Great himself had not been more anxious 
to give Russia a European varnish. More important still, 
she took up Peter's idea of expansion toward the west. 

Since the overthrow of Sweden, the chief resistance to the Catherine 
advance of Russia toward the Black and Baltic Seas had tentionoif" 
centred in Poland and Turkey. Their geographical po- Poland and 
sition made them Russia's rivals and enemies, and Cath- 
erine saw her life-work in their abasement or subjection. 
Before she died she had succeeded in destroying Poland 
and in bringing Turkey to her feet. 

The paralysis of Poland had been brought home to every Explanation of 

. ■ the anarchy 

observer in Europe, when Charles XII. of Sweden succeeded of Poland. 



300 The Rise of Russia 

in holding the country for a number of years with a mere 
handful of troops (1702-07). The weakness of the state 
was due to the selfish nobles and the miserable government 
which they had imposed on the country. To realize its 
ludicrous unfitness, one need only recall the famous pro- 
vision calledjiberum veto, which conferred on every member 
of the Diet the"rightJtQ. forbid by his single veto the adop- 
tion of a legislative measure. By liberum veto one man 
could absolutely stop the machinery of government. Under 
these circumstances Poland was agitated by local quarrels 
in which ambitious neighbors presently took a hand. As it is 
a universal law that the weak are preyed upon by the strong, 
Poland has herself to thank in the first place for the ruin that 
overtook her in the eighteenth century. But that fact, of 
course, does not exempt from guilt the powers that threw 
themselves upon her like beasts of prey and rent her asunder. 
The three The three neighbors of Poland, Russia, Austria, and 

£oland. nS ° Prussia, had long held her in their power before they re- 
solved to put an end to her existence by means of a partition. 
After extended negotiations the measure was finally arranged 
in the year 1 7 72. The partition of that year — called the 
First Partition— did not destroy Poland; it simply peeled 
off slices for the lucky highwaymen. The land beyond the 
Dwina went to Russia, Galicia to Austria, and the province 
of West Prussia to Prussia. But partition once admitted in 
principle, the march of events could not be stopped, and a 
few years later the fate of Poland was sealed by a Second 
and a Third Partition (1793 and 1795). Poland ceased to 
exist as a state when her last army, gallantly led by Kos- 
ciusko, went down before the Russians, but persisting as 
a people, she continued to cherish the hope of a polit- 
ical resurrection. 
The movement The signal success achieved by Catherine in Poland ex- 
stantinople. cited her to increased efforts against the Turks. In two 



And the Decline of Sweden 301 

wars (first war, 1768-74; second war, 1787-92) she suc- 
ceeded in utterly defeating the great Mohammedan power, 
and in extending her territory along the Black Sea to the 
Dniester. It was a solid acquisition, but it did not satisfy 
the ambitious Czarina. She dreamed of getting Constanti- 
nople and left that dream as a heritage to her successors, 
who have cherished it in their hearts and have striven per- 
sistently since her death to set up their standards on the 
Bosporus. 

Catherine left Russia at her death (1796) the greatest Peter and 
power of the north, perhaps even of Europe. Her life, foundersof e 
like that of Peter, is stained with gross immorality, but Russian e reat - 
these two have the honor of having lifted Russia almost 
without aid, and often in spite of herself, to a level of 
civilization at least approximating that of her European 
neighbors. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE RISE OF PRUSSIA 

References: Wakeman, Ascendancy of France, pp. 172- 
83, 289-96, 308-10; Hassall, Balance of Power, Chap- 
ters VI., VII., VIIL, IX., XL (pp. 298-320); Longman, 
Frederick the Great; Henderson, History of Germany, 
Vol. II., Chapters I.-V.; Tuttle, History of Prussia 
(first volume uncritical; last three volumes, dealing with 
Frederick the Great, very creditable) ; Carlyle, Fred- 
erick the Great (a monumental work, very partial to its 
hero); Bright, Maria Theresa; Bright, Joseph II. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Chapter XXXII. , 
Sections 4-8; Wilhelmine, Margravine of Baireuth, 
Memoirs (this princess, sister of Frederick the Great, 
is a most entertaining gossip). 

Early history The modern kingdom of Prussia has developed from 

of the mark of % ....... , . , ' , ,, 

Brandenburg. ver y inconsiderable beginnings which take us back many 
hundred years. Its cradle is the so-called mark or march of 
Brandenburg, founded in the tenth century, in those remote 
feudal times when Germany was practically confined be- 
tween the Rhine and the Elbe, and was constantly threatened 
on its eastern border by the incursions of the Slavs. The 
mark was intended to be a military outpost against these 
people, who, besides being of a different race, filled the lately 
Christianized Germans with added horror because they 
were still heathen. The margrave, as the head of the mark 
was called, was soon not content to stand upon the defen- 
sive, but carried the war into the territory of the enemy, 
crowded back the Slavs foot by foot- and took possession 

302 



The Rise of Prussia 303 

of their lands as far as the Oder. The mark thus came to 
embrace a considerable territory, lying for the most part 
between the Elbe on the west and the Oder on the east, and 
its ruler, the margrave, waxed so great that in the four- 
teenth century he was recognized as one of The~Teading^ 
princes of Germany, receiving the title of elector. Mean- 
while, the first race of margraves, fo~wKom "Brandenburg 
owed its extension, died out, rival claimants appeared, and 
for some time such confusion reigned that the mark threat- 
ened to relapse into barbarism. Out of this anarchy it 
was saved by the stabilizing effect produced by the ac- 
cession of the House of Hohenzollern, destined to remain 
identified with Brandenburg for five hundred years. 

The Hohenzollerns proved themselves in general a f am- origin of the 
ily of strojog_ common-sense and steady endurance, with Hohenzollern 
the result that they slowly raised themselves from rung 
to rung of the ladder of dignities, until in 187 1 the chief 
of the House became head of reunited Germany. Before 
the year 1415, when Frederick of Hohenzollern was put 
in possession of the mark of Brandenburg by Emperor 
Sigismund, the family had not filled a large role in his- 
tory. It originated in the south of Germany, not far 
from the borders of Switzerland, and gradually acquired 
considerable possessions around Nuremberg, but its real 
history begins only with its transfer to the north. 

Frederick took up his task in Brandenburg with energy The early 
and intelligence, secured his borders, overawed his knights, 
and established peace upon the highways. When he died 
in 1440 the mark lay quietly in the hollow of his hand. One 
hundred years later Joachim II. , the contemporary of Luther, 
ranged himself on the side of the Reformation without, how- 
ever, arriving at anything like such a role in the religious 
history of the period as his neighbor, the elector of Saxony. 
It was, in fact, not until the seventeenth century that the 



Hohenzollern 
margraves. 



304 



The Rise of Prussia 



Two impor- 
tant acquisi- 
tions. 



History of 
Prussia. 



East Prussia 
and West 
Prussia. 



margrave of Brandenburg began to outstrip all the other 
princes of the Empire, for under the Elector John Sigis- 
mund (1608-19) the family fell heir to two lucky legacies, 
which secured for it considerable territories in the extreme 
east and in the extreme west of Germany. In_i6oQ,_ by the 
death of the last duke of Cleves and Juliers, John Sigis- 
mund acquired some lands on the lower Rhine, and in 1618 
he succeeded to the duchy of Prussia on the Baltic. 

What is meant by Prussia, and exactly what land was it 
that the margrave of Brandenburg acquired under that name 
in 1 6 18? To answer this question we are obliged to pause for 
a moment and look backward. The name Prussia was ap- 
plied in the Middle Ages to the land which lay along the east- 
ern shore of the Baltic, and was the home of a heathen and 
Slav tribe called Prussians. In the thirteenth century the 
Teutonic Knights, one of those military orders which 
abounded in the age of chivalry, undertook to serve the 
cause of Christ by conquering the land and converting the 
inhabitants to Christianity. The enterprise was successful. 
Either the Prussians accepted the cross or were butchered 
and replaced by German colonists; and the Grand Master 
of the Knights, as their chief was called, became a great 
potentate and ruled over a large territory. But his glory did 
not last long. The land of the order bordered upon Poland, 
frequent wars took place with that great kingdom, and at 
last the Knights were defeated and had to accept an igno- 
minious peace (Treaty of Thorn, 1466). The king of Poland 
divided their territory into two parts, East Prussia and West 
Prussia; while keeping West Prussia absolutely for himself, 
he gave back East Prussia to the Knights as a fief of the 
Polish crown. Thus West Prussia disappeared for the pres- 
ent in the kingdom of Poland, but East Prussia continued 
to have a separate and interesting history. In the sixteenth 
century, at the time of Luther, the Grand Master Albert, a 



The Rise of Prussia 305 

scion of the House of Hohenzollern, became a Protestant, 
broke up the order, and converted East Prussia into a duchy 
with himself as hereditary duke. His family continued to 
rule till 1618, when it became extinct, and the duchy fell, 
as we have seen, to the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg. It 
was an important acquisition, but it came to the margrave 
on the old terms; that is, he held it as a fief of the Polish 
crown. t, 

It was at this time that the Thirty Years' War broke out Meanr61eof 
in Germany. The combined Hohenzollern possessions in duringthe"" 2 
Cleves along the lower Rhine, in Brandenburg, and in East X hirty Years ' 
Prussia, should have made the elector of that period, George 
William (1619-40), an important factor in the struggle; but 
as he was an exception to the Hohenzollern rule, and had 
neither honor, courage, nor intelligence, he vacillated be- 
tween Protestants and Catholics, and lived to see his lands 
invaded, harried, and ruined by both. It was left to his son, 
Frederick William (1640-88), known as the Great Elector, 
to redeem his country and carry the name of Brandenburg 
for the first time into European politics. 

When Frederick William succeeded to the throne (1640), Frederick 
the Thirty Years' War had reduced his lands to the last de- Great Elector, 
gree of misery. He straightway adopted a vigorous policy, 
expelled all foreign soldiery from his states, and in general 
displayed such energy that, when the Peace of Westphalia 
(1648) was signed, he received a number of valuable addi- 
tions of territory — namely, the four secularized bishoprics 
of Halberstadt, Minden, Camin, and Magdeburg, and the 
eastern half of Pomerania on the Baltic. Brandenburg had 
a valid claim to all of Pomerania, but the claim could not be 
realized, as a great power, Sweden, took the western and 
better half for herself. 

Frederick William found himself on his accession at the Absolute 
head of three separate groups of territories, Brandenburg 



306 The Rise of Prussia 

at the centre, with Cleves and Prussia to the west and east. 
Each of these territories constituted a distinct state with its 
own Diet, which not only voted but also collected the taxes; 
in other words, each province was ruled by the s'ector in 
strict cooperation with a representative body. Living in an 
age of absolutism, Frederick William soon resolved to make 
himself master, undermined and practically dissolved the 
Diets, and put himself in complete control of the revenues 
of his territories. Then he proceeded to form an army en- 
tirely dependent on himself, raised it by tireless "efforts to 
25,000 men, and became before his death a respected fac- 
tor in the councils of Europe. Absolutism and the standing 
army are his chief contributions to the organization of the 
state. 
Civilizing But the Great Elector was no common tyrant who broke 

Great Elector, down opposition to his will in order to dispose at pleasure 
of the resources of his subjects. He considered himself the 
father of his country, called to reign in order to advance it 
along all lines of human endeavor. He encouraged indus- 
try and agriculture, built roads and canals to facilitate com- 
merce, drained marshes, and called colonists from near and 
far in order to bring again under the plough the lands which 
the Thirty Years' War had turned into a wilderness. His 
most notable achievement in this respect is associated with 
the name of the Huguenots. When, by reason of Louis 
XIV.'s folly and bigotry, the Edict of Nantes was revoked 
(1685) and the Huguenots began to seek homes elsewhere 
the Great Elector sent them a pressing invitation to come 
to him. Some twenty thousand joyfully responded, and 
were settled mainly around Berlin. With characteristic 
industry they turned the sand wastes around the north- 
ern capital into kitchen gardens, and by thefc intelligence 
communicated a powerful mental stimulus to ah northern 
Germany. 



The Rise of Prussia 307 

With increased resources and an efficient army at his dis- His hostility to 
posal, Frederick William was not likely to let any opportunity 
slip to increase his territory. As matters stood after the 
Peace of Westphalia, his chief rival was Sweden, ensconced 
in western Pomerania, only a few hours' march from Berlin. 
This alone would have sufficed to make Sweden an object 
of hatred and suspicion, even if there had not been the ad- 
ditional reason that Frederick William considered western 
Pomerania to be by right his own. Luckily for him Sweden 
had other enemies, more formidable than himself — Denmark, 
Russia, Poland, in fact the whole ring of the Baltic powers. 
The paramount position which Sweden had won was dis- 
tasteful to them and they were ever ready to seize any op- 
portunity for lowering her pride. In 1655 war broke out be- 
tween Sweden and Poland, during which Frederick William, 
whose territories lay between the hostile states, was alternate- 
ly coaxed and bullied by both. But he steered his course 
between the combatants with such unscrupulous dexterity 
that he came out of the war with profit and prestige, having 
forced the king of Poland to surrender the suzerainty of / c 7*- 
East Prussia. Henceforth the elector held that territory in 
full sovereignty. 

A few years later he introduced his new army to the War with 
world and scored an astonishing triumph. The occasion 7 ^ e en>1 
was furnished by Louis XIV., who in 1672 fell upon Hol- 
land, resolved to crush that stout little republic. Frederick 
William together with the emperor rose in its defence, an 
interference that so enraged Louis that he persuaded the 
Swedes, who were bound to him by treaty, to invade Branden- 
burg. This unexpected move obliged the elector, who was 
operating on the Rhine, to hurry home. Approaching by 
forced marches and with great stealth, he Jell in June, 
1675, upon the enemy at Fehrb^Uin and beat him signally. 
Fehrbeliin brilliantly opens the military annals of Branden- 



308 The Rise of Prussia 

burg, and what followed showed that the victory was not 
merely a lucky stroke, for the elector pursued the Swedes 
into Pomerania and conquered the province. But to his 
deep chagrin he got no good from his victory, for when 
Louis XIV. closed by the Treaty of Nimwegen (1678) the 
Dutch war, he stood faithfully by his ally, Sweden, and 
compelled the Great Elector to disgorge his Swedish con- 
quests. 

After this disappointment he tried to advance his interests 
in the province of Silesia, where the House of Hohenzollern 
had ancient claims to certain districts, to wit, to the four 
duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau, and Jagerndorf. The 
province of Silesia belonged to the House of Hapsburg, and 
the emperor, who was the head of this House, refused to admit 
the validity of the Hohenzollern claims. As Hapsburg was 
more than Hohenzollern, and the emperor counted for more 
than the elector, the claimant got no satisfaction until the 
time came when the emperor, weary of the unfruitful dis- 
pute, declared his willingness to compromise. In 1686 he 
induced Frederick William to surrender, in return for the 
district of Schwiebus in Silesia, all his presumptive rights 
in that province. But the emperor, who was Leopold I., 
played a double game. While he was openly negotiating 
this arrangement with the elector, he was secretly persuading 
the elector's son, who was not on good terms with his father, 
to promise to give back Schwiebus on his accession. Two 
years later Frederick William died (1688), and his son 
Frederick, who succeeded him, had to live up to the bargain, 
but could and did maintain with much show of reason that 
the return of the purchase money revived his unsettled claims. 
This Silesian incident is of importance because it turned 
up again some fifty years later, when the punishment for 
the trickery of the Emperor Leopold was visited a hundred- 
fold upon an innocent successor, 



The Rise of Prussia 309 

The Elector Frederick (1688-17 13) was a very different The elector of 
man from his solid, practical father. Weak and deformed becomeskinf 
from birth and incapable of mental application, he showed inPrussi ^- 
throughout his life that he cared much more for the pleas- 
ures of the court than for the duties of his office. Never- 
theless, his reign is made memorable by the fact that he 
won for the elector of Brandenburg the new title of king in 
Prussia. As Frederick was a vassal of the Empire, the title 
could be assumed only with the consent of the emperor, 
who granted it after long delay and with much reluctance, 
as payment for a loan of troops in the impending War of 
the Spanish Succession. On January 18, 1701, the cere- 
mony of coronation took place at Konigsberg, the capital of 
East Prussia, and henceforth the Elector Frederick III. of 
Brandenburg was known by his higher title of King Fred- 
erick I. in Prussia. 1 The title king in Prussia was adopted 
in preference to that of king of Brandenburg, because as king 
of Brandenburg he would still be a vassal, whereas drawing 
his royal title from Prussia, which was not part of the Em- 
pire and was subject to no one, his crown would have an 
added lustre. The name Prussia was henceforth used as 
a common designation for all the Hohenzollern states, and 
gradually drove from common usage the older designa- 
tion, Brandenburg. 

Frederick's successor, King Frederick William I. (17 13- King Frederick 

40), is a curious reversion to an older type. He was the ^j 13 ^' or _ 

Great Elector over again, with all his practical good sense ganizer and ad- 

,,..., ., , . , , . . r ministrator, 

and love of administrative detail, but without his genius for 

diplomatic business or his political ambition. He gave his 

life to the organization of the state along the lines laid down 



1 The first form of the title was as here, king in Prussia, in order to fore- 
stall any criticism from Poland, which, having incorporated West Prussia, 
might have protested against the title king of Prussia, as implying the sov- 
ereignty over all Prussia. Nevertheless, the simpler form, king of Prus- 
sia, came before long into general use. 



3ioi 



The Rise of Prussia 



He acquires 
the better part 
of Swedish 
Pomerania. 



by his famous ancestor, carrying to an efficiency unrivalled 
in his day the army and the administration. By close thrift 
he managed to raise his standing army to some 80,000 men, 
which put little Prussia in military matters in a class with the 
great states of Europe. And what troops they were! An 
iron discipline moulded them into the most precise military 
engine then to be found in Europe, and a corps of officers 
which did not buy its commissions, as everywhere else at 
that time, but was appointed strictly on merit, applied to it 
a trained and devoted service. In his civil administration 
also he built upon the foundation of the Great Elector. The 
grandfather had established the unity of the state by break- 
ing down the local authorities, but it was left to the grand- 
son to create a body of professional civil servants who ad- 
ministered the state directly under the king. The highly 
centralized administration of modern Prussia, which with 
all its obvious defects, such as excessive "red tape," was 
yet a model in its bureaucratic way, may be set down to 
the credit of King Frederick William I. 

For these two creations of an army and a civil service 
Frederick William holds a high place as a domestic king. 
In foreign affairs he did not do so well, being unsuited for 
the delicate transactions of diplomacy by his rough, blus- 
tering temper. However, the good fortune which had en- 
abled almost every one of his ancestors to accumulate some 
new territory, continued to attend him, since he added a part 
of Swedish Pomerania to the Prussian crown. The oppor- 
tunity was furnished by the downfall of Charles XII. at 
Pultava (1709). While he was stubbornly and stupidly lin- 
gering in Turkey, his Baltic neighbors appropriated his ter- 
ritories, and Frederick William, in order not to be left out 
in the cold, sent an army of occupation into Pomerania. Of 
course on his return the Swedish lion stood at bay against 
his aggressors; but when he died in 17 18 the government 



The Rise of Prussia 311 



hastened to come to terms with the victors and ceded to 
Prussia the mouth of the Oder with the port of Stettin. 
The new territory was small, but its position made it inval- 
uable to the commercial development of the Prussian state^. 

This sturdy king, who has left such solid memorials Hiseccen 
behind him, made himself, through some of the strangest 
eccentricities which have ever characterized a human being, 
the laughing-stock of Europe. His conception of his office 
was a curious compound of Biblical patriarch and modern 
drill-sergeant. He had his eye upon everybody and every- 
thing. If he suspected a man of being wealthy, he would 
compel him to build a fine residence to improve the looks of 
the capital. He had a particular abhorrence of idleness; 
the very apple-women, while waiting in their booths for cus- 
tomers, were ordered to do some useful knitting, and the 
police were empowered to pick up any random lounger they 
found and put him to social service in the army. But per- 
haps his wildest eccentricity was his craze for tall soldiers. 
At Potsdam, his residence some miles from Berlin, he estab- 
lished a giant guard, for which he gathered recruits from all 
parts of the world. He petted and coddled his giants like a 
sentimental father, and was so completely carried away by his 
hobby that he, who was thrifty to the point of avarice, of- 
fered enormous prices in all markets for tall men, and did 
not scruple to capture them by force when they refused to 
enlist. 

This unpolished northern bear naturally kept his elegant His conflict 
neighbors in convulsions of laughter by his performances, prince. e 
On one occasion, however, his eccentricity threatened to 
end not in laughter but in tears. The king's son and heir, 
Frederick, known afterward as the Great, was a self-willed, 
careless fellow, who was drawn much more to books and 
music than to soldiering, and grew up in all respects the 
very opposite of his bluff, practical father. Parent and son 



312 



The Rise of Prussia 



conceived a strong antipathy for each other; and when the 
father attempted by corporal punishment to coerce his son, 
the proud prince resolved to run away. In the year 173c 
he tried, with the aid of some friends, to carry out his de- 
sign, but was caught in the act. Frederick William almost 
lost his mind from rage. He threw his son into prison, and 
spoke wildly for a time of executing him as a common de- 
serter from the army. When the prince was at last released 
he was put through such a training in the civil and military 
administrations, from the lowest grades upward, as perhaps 
no other royal personage has ever received. The stern dis- 
cipline was felt as a heavy burden by Frederick, prince and 
dilettante; but Frederick, the responsible king, was enabled 
thereby to know every branch of his vast administration 
like a thumbed book. 

In the year 1740 Frederick II., who had now reached the 
age of twenty-eight, succeeded to the throne. As he had 
spent the last years of his father's life in rural retirement, 
gathering about himself a circle of intimates with whom he 
devoted his leisure to the pursuit of art and literature, every- 
thing else was expected of him rather than military designs 
and political ambition. But an unexpected opportunity 
carried him straight into the ranks of the leaders. 

A few months after Frederick's accession, in October, 
1740, the Emperor Charles VI., the last male of the line of 
Hapsburg, died. Long before his death he had sought to 
forestall all trouble by regulating the succession in an ordi- 
nance, called the Pragmatic Sanction, in which he named 
his oldest daughter, Maria Theresa, the sole heir of his un- 
divided dominions; and during his last years he knocked at 
the doors of all the European cabinets to get them to in- 
dorse and guarantee his act. Such guarantees having been 
received from all the leading states, sometimes at a great 
sacrifice, he died with composed conscience, and the Arch- 



The Rise of Prussia 313 

duchess Maria Theresa prepared immediately to assume the 
rule of Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, and the other Haps- 
burg lands. It was at this point that Frederick stepped in. 
He was young, ambitious, capable, with a full treasury and 
a fine army and before him in the momentary confusion at 
Vienna lay an unexampled opportunity to settle the old con- 
flict over the Silesian lands. Having reflected upon the sit- 
uation for some days, he took the bull by the horns and in 
December, 1740, marched his army into the disputed prov- 
ince. His act was the signal for a general rising. The 
German states, Bavaria and Saxony, and the great foreign 
powers, France and Spain, followed his example and on 
some trumped-up claim to the heritage of Charles VI. pre- 
pared to invade the Austrian dominions. To poor Maria 
Theresa's indignant remonstrances they turned a deaf ear. 
Thus hardly was the last male Hapsburg cold in his grave, 
when it was apparent that the Pragmatic Sanction was not 
worth the paper it was written on. 

It might have gone hard with Maria Theresa if she had The War of 
not found splendid resources of heart and mind in herself, Succession 
and if she had not gained the undivided support of the many be s ins - 
nationalities under her sway. Her enemies were descend- 
ing upon her in two main directions, the French and their 
German allies from the west, by way of the Danube, and 
Frederick of Prussia from the north. Unprepared as she 
was, her raw levies gave way, at first, at every point. On 
April 10, 1 741, at Mollwitz, Frederick won a great victory 
over the Austrians, clinching by means of it his hold upon 
Silesia. In the same year the French, Saxons, and Bava- 
rians invaded Bohemia. So complete, for the time being, 
was the dominion of the anti-Austrian alliance that when in 
January, 1742, the imperial election took place, the com- 
bined enemies of Austria were able to raise their candidate, 
the Elector Charles of Bavaria, to the imperial throne. The 



314 



The Rise of Prussia 



Maria Theresa 
makes over 
Silesia to 
Frederick, 
1742. 



Maria 
Theresa's 
success and 
Frederick's 
second attack 
upon her. 



elector assumed his new dignity with the title of Emperor 
Charles VII. (1742-45), and for the first time in three hun- 
dred years the crown of the Empire rested upon another 
than a Hapsburg head. 

But at this point Maria Theresa's fortunes rose again. 
Her own magnetic enthusiasm did wonders in restoring and 
organizing her scattered forces. Not only was the army of 
the coalition driven out of Bohemia, but Bavaria, the land of 
the enemy, was invaded and occupied. The Prussians, who 
had likewise entered Bohemia in order to help their allies, 
were hard pressed, but saved themselves by a victory at 
Czaslau (May, 1742). Thereupon Maria Theresa, who 
saw that she could not meet so many enemies at one 
and the same time, declared her willingness to come to 
terms with her most formidable foe. In 1742 she signed 
with Frederick the Peace of Breslau, by which she gave 
up practically the whole province of Silesia. What is 
known in Prussia as the First Silesian War had come to 
an end. 

Maria Theresa now prosecuted the war against her other 
enemies with increased vigor. England and Holland, old 
friends of Austria, joined her, and with each new campaign 
the scales inclined more visibly in her favor. When the pup- 
pet emperor, Charles VII., had lost every foot of land he 
owned, and the Austrian armies stood triumphantly upon 
the Rhine, Maria Theresa could feel with elation that she 
was rapidly becoming the mistress of Germany. Awart 
that in that case he could not hold his new conquest a year, 
Frederick was moved to strike a second blow. In 1744 he 
began the Second Silesian War, in which his calculations 
were completely successful. He first relieved the French 
and the Bavarians by drawing the Austrians upon himself, 
and then he defeated the enemy signally at the battle of 
Hohenfriedberg (1745). On Christmas day, 1745, Maria 





NOTE 'TO THE STUDENT: 
Russia and Prussia shared in all three" partitions ; Austria in two. After 
many changes in the era of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna (1815) 
adopted a rearrangement which lasted till the Great War. By its terms 
Austria and Prussia kept little more than their acquisitions of 1772, giving 
up the rest to Russia. Thus Russia is by far the leading beneficiary from 
the overthrow of Poland. 



The Rise of Prussia 315 

Theresa bought her second peace of Frederick by a renewed 
cession of Silesia (Peace of Dresden). 

For a few more years the general war continued. After Close of the 
Frederick's retirement it was waged to some extent in Italy, Austrian Sue- 
but chiefly in the Austrian Netherlands, where Maurice de cession - 
Saxe, a German prince in the employ of Louis XV., saved 
the military reputation of France by winning a number of 
brilliant victories over Maria Theresa and her English and 
Dutch allies. Finally, in 1748, everybody being tired of 
fighting, the contestants signed the Peace of Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle (Aachen), by which Maria Theresa was universally 
recognized as the sovereign of the Hapsburg dominions. 
Already, as early as 1745, her husband, Francis of Lorraine, 
had been elected emperor in place of Charles VII., who had 
just died in a misery deservedly visited upon him by his de- 
sire to play a role beyond his powers. Thus the affairs of 
Germany were gradually brought back into the accustomed 
rut. The War of the Austrian Succession had come to an end, 
and against everybody's prediction the empress's splendid 
qualities had maintained her dominions intact, with the ex- 
ception of certain slight cessions in Italy and the one sub- 
stantial sacrifice of Silesia. 

When Frederick retired from the Second Silesian War, Prussia a 
the position of Prussia had been revolutionized. The king grea powei 
had received from his father a promising state, but it was of 
no great size and it enjoyed no authority in Europe. Fred- 
erick, by adding Silesia to it, gave it for the first time a suf- 
ficient extent and population to enforce a certain respect; 
but that acquisition alone would not have raised Prussia to 
the level of Austria, France, England, or Russia. It was 
the genius displayed by the young king at the head of Prus- 
sia which fell so heavily into the balance that Prussia was 
henceforth counted among the great powers of Europe. 

Frederick, having thus won his military laurels, settled 



3 16 The Rise of Prussia 

Frederick's down to the much harder work of governing his country 
internal labors. .,, . , , ... , , .... 

with wisdom by increasing its resources and by raising its 

standards of civilization. The ten years of peace which fol- 
lowed the Second SilesianWar are crowded with vigorous 
domestic labors. He continued the thrifty policy of his an- 
cestors of reclaiming waste lands and settling homeseekers 
upon them, his greatest achievement of this kind being the 
drainage of the swamps along the Oder, where he was ena- 
bled to found several villages with a total of twelve hundred 
families. He promoted the internal traffic by new canals, 
and fostered home industries, especially the manufacture of 
woollen and linen goods. Finally, he carried through a re- 
form of the procedure of the courts by which everybody 
from high to low was assured a swift and impartial justice. 
The personal- All of Frederick's heavy political duties never destroyed 
prick. in him the artistic instinct, which had come to him as a 

gift of nature. He engaged in literature with as much 
fervor as if it were his life-work, and took constant delight 
in composing music and in playing the flute. What pleased 
him most, however, was a circle of congenial friends. He 
was especially well inclined to Frenchmen, because that na- 
tion represented, to his mind, the highest culture of the Eu- 
rope of his day. A larger or smaller circle of polished neigh- 
bors from beyond the Rhine was about him all his life to 
philosophize, to comment, and to laugh, and for a number 
of years (1750-53) he even entertained at his court the leader 
of contemporary thought and the quintessence of Gallic wit, 
Voltaire. But after a period of sentimental attachment the 
king and the philosopher quarrelled, and Voltaire vanished 
from Berlin in a cloud of scandal. In any case, the momen- 
tary conjunction of the two most characteristic figures of 
the eighteenth century — the one its greatest master in the 
field of action, the other the herald of a renovated Europe 
■ — has an historical interest. 



The Rise of Prussia 317 

All this while Frederick was aware that Maria Theresa Maria Theresa 
was not his friend. A high-spirited woman like the em- backsfllsia. 
press was not likely to forget the violence of which she had 
been the victim. She hoped to get back Silesia, and for 
years carefully laid her plans. As early as 1746 she en- 
tered upon a close alliance with Russia, which the two con- 
tracting parties understood to be aimed at Frederick. Next, 
her minister Kaunitz, a most skilful player of the diplomatic 
game, planned the bold step of an alliance with France. In 
the eighteenth century an alliance between Hapsburg and 
Bourbon, the century-old enemies, was generally held to be 
out of the question. The rule in Austria had been to meet 
the aggression of France by an alliance with England, and 
any other arrangement seemed to be contrary to the law of 
nature itself. But since the Silesian wars Austria had come 
to regard not France but Prussia as her leading enemy, and 
Maria Theresa and Kaunitz were very anxious to have France 
understand that thenceforth they had no further quarrel with 
her. Their plans were greatly aided by the following circum- 
stance: England and France were making ready, about the 
middle of the century, to contest the empire of the sea. 1 Both 
were looking for continental allies; and as Prussia, after hold- 
ing back a long time, was induced at last to sign a convention 
with England, France, in order not to be isolated, accepted 
the proffered hand of Prussia's rival, Austria. In the spring The diplomatic 
of 1756 this diplomatic revolution was an accomplished fact. ^6. u lon ° 
The two great political questions of the day, the rivalry be- 
tween England and France, involving the supremacy of the 
seas, and between Prussia and Austria, touching the control 
of Germany, were about to be fought out in the great Seven ~ 
Years' War (1756-63), and the two northern and Protestant 
powers, England and Prussia, were to consolidate their 
claims and interests against the claims and interests of the 

1 For France and England see the nejjt chapter (Chapter XV.). 



3i8 



The Rise of Prussia 



War between 
England and 
France. 
Position of 
Prussia. 



The marvel- 
lous campaign 
of 1757. 



Catholic powers, France and Austria. The remaining great 
power of Europe, Russia, instead of remaining neutral in a 
dispute which did not concern her, sided with the cabinets 
of Versailles and Vienna. 

The war between France and England was formally de- 
clared in May, 1756, and the struggle between these two 
powers immediately began in America, India, and on all the 
seas. For a moment the hope was entertained of keeping 
the conflict out of the Continent of Europe, but only for a 
moment. Then the long-threatening storm burst; and as 
England, for the present at least, was engaged with all her 
forces elsewhere, the concentrated fury of the tempest de- 
scended upon her ally, Prussia. Coolly reviewing the situa- 
tion of 1756, one may fairly say that the Austrian diplo- 
macy was justified in the belief that the hated rival of 
Austria was as good as annihilated. The union with France 
and Russia was the basis of the confidence of Maria The- 
resa, but there were also negotiated, or about to be nego- 
tiated, a series of treaties with such secondary powers as 
Saxony, Sweden, and the Empire. The plan of the Austrian 
cabinet was that the Austrians should march upon Frederick 
from the south, the French from the west, the Russians 
from the east, the Swedes from the north, and so shut in 
and choke to death the new power of which they were all 
jealous. 

Frederick's one chance in this tremendous crisis was tc 
move quickly. Before the allies had perfected their plans 
against him, he therefore, by a lightning stroke, occupied 
Saxony, and invaded Bohemia (autumn, 1756). The next 
year his enemies marched upon him from all points of the 
compass. Again he planned to meet them separately before 
they had united. He hurried into Bohemia, and was on the 
point of taking the capital, Prague, when the defeat of a 
part of his army at Kolin (June 18th) forced him to retreat 



The Rise of Prussia 319 

to Saxony. Slowly the Austrians followed and poured into 
the coveted Silesia. The Russians had already arrived in 
East Prussia, the Swedes were in Pomerania, and the French, 
together with the German troops furnished by the many 
small states of the Empire, were marching upon Berlin. 
Even the friends and family of Frederick were ready to de- 
clare that all was lost, while his enemies exulted openly. 
He alone kept up heart, and by his courage, swiftness, and 
intelligence freed himself from all immediate danger by a 
succession of surprising victories. At Rossbach, in Thu- 
ringia, he fell (November 5, 1757), with 22,000 men, upon 
the combined French and Germans of twice that number, 
and scattered them to the winds. Then he turned like a 
flash from the west to the east. During his absence in 
Thuringia the Austrians had completed the conquest of 
Silesia, and were already proclaiming to the world that 
they had come again into their own. Just a month after 
Rossbach, at Leuthen, near Breslau, he signally defeated, 
with 34,000 men, more than twice as many Austrians, and 
drove them pell-mell over the passes of the Giant Mountains 
back, into their own dominions. Fear and incapacity had 
already arrested the Swedes and Russians. Before winter 
came both had slipped away, and at Christmas, 1757, Fred- 
erick could call himself lord of an undiminished kingdom. 

In no succeeding campaign was Frederick threatened by Altered posi- 
such overwhelming forces as in 1757. By the next year Frederick 
England had fitted out an army, largely of German mer- from 1758 on. 
cenaries, which, under Ferdinand of Brunswick, operated 
against the French upon the Rhine, and so protected Fred- 
erick from that side. As the Swedish offence, through the 
total incapacity of the government, displayed no energy, 
Frederick was permitted to make light of his Scandinavian 
enemy, and give all his attention to Austria and Russia. No 
doubt, even so, the odds against Prussia were enormous. 



320 



The Rise of Prussia 



growing fee- 
•leness of 
Russia. 



Peace with 
Russia, 1762. 



Prussia was a poor, barren country of 5,000,000 inhabitants, 
and in men and resources Austria and Russia together out- 
stripped her many times; but at the head of Prussia stood 
a military genius with a spirit that neither bent nor broke, 
and that fact sufficed for a while to establish an equilibrium. 

It was Frederick's policy during the next years to meet the 
Austrians and Russians separately, in order to keep them 
from rolling down upon him with combined forces. In 1758 
he succeeded in beating the Russians at Zorndorf and driv- 
ing them back, but in 1759 they beat him in a battle of un- 
exampled carnage at Kunersdorf. For a moment now it 
looked as if he were lost, but he somehow raised another 
force about him, and the end of the campaign found him 
not much worse off than the beginning. However, he was 
evidently getting feeble; the terrible strain continued through 
years was beginning to tell; and when on the death of George 
II., the new English monarch, George III. refused (1761) 
to pay the annual subsidy, by which alone Frederick was 
enabled to fill the thinned ranks of the army each year and 
equip the men, the proud king himself could hardly keep 
up his hopes. 

At this crisis Frederick was saved by a turn of the wheel 
of fortune. Frederick's implacable enemy, the Czarina 
Elizabeth, died January 5, 1762, and as Russia had no di- 
rect interest in the war, but had engaged in it only because 
the Czarina had a personal dislike for Frederick, there was 
no reason why her successor, Peter III., who was an ardent 
admirer of the Prussian king, should not come to terms 
with him. Peter in his enthusiasm even insisted on allying 
himself with his country's late enemy; but little came of this 
plan, as he was overthrown and murdered in July, 1762, and 
Catherine II., who succeeded him, would not engage further 
in the war. However, she made Frederick eternally grate- 
ful by at least ratifying the peace which Peter had concluded. 



The Rise of Prussia 32 1 

This same year England and France came to an understand- 
ing (Preliminaries of Fontainebleau, 1762) and hostilities 
between them were at once suspended at all points. So 
there remained under arms of the great powers only Austria 
and Prussia; and as Austria could not hope to do unaided 
what she had failed to do with half of Europe at her side, Third cession 
Maria Theresa, although with heavy heart, resolved to come I763- ' 
to terms. In the Peace of Hubertsburg (February, 1763) 
the cession of Silesia to Frederick was made final. 

Counting from the Peace of Hubertsburg Frederick had Labors of 
still twenty-three years before him, which he devoted with peace- 
unslacking energy to the works of peace. And all his skill 
and husbandry were required to bring his exhausted coun- 
try back to vigor. We now hear again, as during the first 
period of peace (1745-56), of extensive reforms, of the for- 
mation of provincial banks, the draining of bogs, the cutting 
of canals, and the encouragement of industries, in a word, 
of all those peaceful activities which a wise ruler has always 
set above the ephemeral glories of war. 

Only two political events of the last period of Frederick's Frederick ac- 
life claim our attention. In 1772 the ancient anarchy and Prussia, 
weakness of Poland precipitated the event which intelligent 
observers had long foreseen. Her three neighbors, Russia, 
Austria, and Prussia, agreed to appropriate each one some 
convenient province of the stricken country. Frederick re- 
ceived as his share the province of West Prussia, which had 
been won by Poland from the Teutonic Order many hundred 
years ago, and by means of it established the territorial con- 
tinuity of his eastern and central provinces. In 1778 another 
war threatened to break out with Austria. Joseph II., who, 
on the death of his father, Francis I., in 1765, had suc- 
ceeded him as emperor, and who, even in the lifetime of his 
mother, had been admitted to a share in the government of 
the Hapsburg dominions, was a young man of high-flying 



322 



The Rise of Prussia 



Frederick 
vetoes Joseph's 
attempt to 
absorb 
Bavaria. 



Rivalry be- 
tween Prussia 
and Austria. 



plans and ambitions. On the extinction, in 1777, of the 
reigning branch of the House of Wittelsbach, he schemed to 
acquire Bavaria. As that would have given back to Aus- 
tria her ancient predominance in Germany, Frederick II. 
was resolved to resist the project at all costs, and took the 
field. But the quarrel was patched up before a battle had 
been fought by the intervention of Maria Theresa, who had 
no taste for again trying conclusions with Prussia. The 
gist of the settlement was that Joseph sacrificed his ambi- 
tion, and in 1779 the so-called War of the Bavarian Suc- 
cession came to an end without bloodshed. In 1786 Fred- 
erick died at his favorite country-seat, called Sans Souci, 
which he had built for himself near Potsdam. His memor- 
able reign had lasted forty-six years. 

It has already been pointed out that Frederick won for 
Prussia a position among the great powers of Europe. A 
consequence of that success, which is implied in every page 
of his history, is that he became the rival of Austria for the 
supremacy in Germany. From now on the open and secret 
struggle of these two states, the one trying to maintain its 
traditional ascendancy, the other resolved not to lose what it 
had won, is the main theme of German history. The fact 
that one lay in the north and was Protestant, while the other 
held the south and was Catholic, gave a sectional and re- 
ligious edge to their rivalry, which continued to disturb and 
paralyze Germany until a new war in 1866, within the mem- 
ory of the generation which is only just vanishing, swept the 
old issue out of existence by giving the victory and its fruits 
to Prussia. Thereupon Prussia planned and, in 187 1 , carried 
to successful issue a new unification of Germany, in which 
the student will not fail to perceive that Frederick the Great 
had a hand. 



CHAPTER XV 

ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

References: Gardiner, Student's History of England, Parts 
VIII., IX., pp. 649-819; Green, Short History of the 
English People, Chapter IX. (beginning Section 7), 
Chapter X. (Sections 1-3) ; Terry, History of England, 
pp. 805-941; Traill, William III.; Perkins, France 
under Louis XV.; Parkman, Half Century of Conflict; 
Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe; Malleson, Dupleix 
(Rulers of India) ; also Clive (Rulers of India) ; Mahan, 
Influence of Sea Power upon History; Lecky, Eng- 
land in the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols, (a detailed 
review). 1 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., Chapter 
XXXIII. (The English in India and America) ; Adams 
and Stephens, Documents, No. 237 (First Mutiny Act), 
Nos. 240-58 (including Act of Settlement, Act of Union 
with Scotland, Act of Union with Ireland) ; Colby, Se- 
lections from the Sources, Part VII. 

The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 put an end to the Thesignifi- 
long civil wars of England. By supplanting James with "Glorious 
William and Mary, it secured the Protestant religion; by the Revolutlon -' 
Bill of Rights, it brought the king in all respects under the 
law and added the coping stone to the constitutional mon- 
archy; and by the Toleration Act, it gave the right of worship 
to Dissenters, and paved the way for religious peace. Prot- 
estantism, constitutionalism, and religious peace, these three, 
are the main pillars of modern England, which may thus be 
said to have come into being with the advent of William. 

3 2 3 ' 



324 



England and France 



For the first few years of his reign William had to secure 
his throne by fighting. James II. had sought refuge with 
Louis XIV., and the decision of the French king to espouse 
the cause of James naturally threw England on the side of 
the allies, consisting of the emperor, the Dutch, and Spain, 
with whom Louis had just engaged in the war known as the 
War of the Palatinate (1688-97). The event marks a turn- 
ing-point in the fortunes of the French king. His policy of 
continental aggression had been attended so far with success, 
especially as he had met with help rather than hindrance 
from England. Henceforth England was found shoulder to 
shoulder with the continental nations against the disturber 
of the public peace. This action her national interests had 
long ago demanded, but it was one of the penalties she paid 
for putting up with Stuart rule, that she was governed not 
for her own but for dynastic ends. It is the great merit of 
William that he identified himself with the nation and gave 
an impulse to English affairs, which, steadily gathering 
strength during the next century, ended not only with check- 
ing the ambition of France on the Continent, but also in 
wresting from her her best colonies and the undisputed su- 
premacy of the seas. To the same reign, therefore, which 
witnessed the triumph of constitutionalism, we must also set 
down the launching of England upon her maritime and 
imperial policy. 

The War of the Palatinate has been dealt with in our nar- 
rative of Louis XIV., except that phase which belongs ex- 
clusively to England. The story of this takes us to Ireland. 
In March, 1689, James II. crossed from France, and im- 
mediately the Irish, who were enthusiastic Catholics, gath- 
ered around him. To them James II. was the legitimate 
king, while to the English and Scottish settlers of Ireland, 
who sympathized with Protestant William, he was no better 
than a usurper. Again the terrible race hatred of Celt and 



In the Eighteenth Century 325 

Saxon flamed up in war. The Protestants were driven from 
their homes, and for a time it looked as if the island would 
fall back to its original owners. However, on July 1, 1690, 
William signally defeated James at the battle of the Boyne, 
whereupon the Stuart, who was a despicable soldier, hur- 
ried back to France, shamefully abandoning to the mercies 
of the English the people who had risen in his support. The 
measures by which the victorious William now supplemented 
the legislation of his predecessors broke the back of Irish 
resistance for a hundred years. 

It will be well before we speak of these measures to review The relations 
the relations of England and Ireland during the whole sev- and Ireland. 
enteenth century. When James I. mounted the throne in 
1603, Ireland had been a dependency of the English crown 
for nearly five hundred years, but the English rule had rarely 
been more than nominal, for the government generally con- 
trolled no more than a few districts of the eastern coast, 
known as the English pale. The heart of the island was 
held by the native tribes, who, governed by their chiefs in 
accordance with their own laws and customs, remained 
practically independent. If, instead of perpetual local war- 
fare, there had been a spirit of unity among the Irish, their 
conquerors might have been crowded out entirely, for not till 
the time of Henry VIII. did the government adopt a vigor- 
ous policy toward the smaller island, and not till the very 
close of Elizabeth's reign was English authority effectively 
established. Almost her last triumph was the putting down 
by her army of the great rebellion in Ulster, led by Hugh 
O'Neill. When James I. succeeded Elizabeth, he took a 
step fraught with tremendous consequences. He resolved 
to confiscate the northeastern districts, constituting the 
province of Ulster, and colonize them with English and The coloniza- 
Scottish settlers, as the best means for securing the ulster. 
peaceful development of the island. In 1610 the Irish 



326 



England and France 



of Ulster were crowded out, with no more said than that 
they must find subsistence elsewhere. Since that act an 
implacable hatred has ruled the relations of oppressors and 
oppressed. 

In the year 1641, when the troubles between king and 
Parliament temporarily annihilated the power of England, 
the Irish fell upon the colonists of Ulster, and murdered 
them or drove them from their homes v The English revenge 
for this outrage had, of course, to be delayed until the execu- 
tion of the king and the victory of the Parliament had re- 
established the authority of the nation. At length, in 1649, 
Cromwell undertook to reconquer Ireland. He was suc- 
cessful, but not without much cruelty and bloodshed. To 
the long-standing race hatred, it must be remembered, had 
been added, since the sixteenth century, the incentive of re- 
ligious passion to trouble the relations between the two 
peoples. In the conviction that conciliation would be in- 
terpreted as weakness, Cromwell resumed the former 
policy of plunder and confiscation, with the result that two- 
thirds of the island now passed into English hands. The 
dispossessed Irish were bidden to go find bread or else a 
grave in the bogs and forests of the west. When William 
III. in 1690 overthrew the next insurrection at the battle of 
the Boyne, the policy of confiscation scored another and a 
final triumph, and therewith the Irish became a people with- 
out land, without rights, and without a future. To com- 
plete their misery the Parliament at London presently struck 
at their commerce and industry by forbidding the importation 
into England of cattle and dairy products, for which the Irish 
soil and climate were particularly suitable, and of woollens, 
which had acquired a merited renown. Thus by a merci- 
less application of the rights of conquest the Irish were made 
aliens in their own land, and were reduced to becoming 
tenants, day-laborers, and beggars. 



In the Eighteenth Century 327 

It has already been said that William's great merit as William labor* 
sovereign of England was that he enabled her to adopt a France, 
policy in harmony with her national interests. He gave his 
chief attention to creating a system of balance to the kingdom 
of France, allying himself for this purpose with the powers 
threatened by France, most particularly with the emperor 
and the Dutch. Of this combination he became the guiding 
spirit, and as its head waged with Louis the War of the 
Palatinate (1689-97), with the result that the French king 
drew off at the Peace of Ryswick without a gain. William 
spent the next years in negotiating with Louis an equitable 
division of the expected Spanish heritage; but when, in the 
year 1700, the king of Spain, Charles II., died, leaving a 
will in favor of the House of Bourbon, Louis XIV. disavowed 
the negotiations by sending his grandson, Philip, to Madrid 
to assume the rule of the undivided Spanish dominions. 
Out of this presumptuous act grew the War of the Spanish 
Succession, for which William had hardly prepared, by a 
renewal of his continental alliances, when he died (1702). 
Since his wife, Mary, had died some years before (1694), 
without issue, the crown now passed to Mary's sister Anne, 
but as it was foreseen, even in William's lifetime, that 
Anne, too, would leave no offspring, a special statute was The Act of 
passed, called the Act of Settlement (1701), for the purpose Settlement, 
of regulating the succession. The act established that the 
crown could descend only to a Protestant, and accordingly 
named the Electress Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of 
James I. through his daughter Elizabeth, as the next heir 
after Anne. 1 

We have seen that the accession of William and Mary, ThePariia- 
secured and consecrated by the Bill of Rights, definitely ^growatthe 6 
subjected the sovereign to the law and established the victory expense of the 
of the Parliament in the long struggle with the king Not 

1 See Genealogical Table of the Kings of England. 



328 England and France 

unnaturally the Parliament now proceeded to take advantage 
of its hard-won ascendancy by completing the constitutional 
edifice after its own plan. Without interruption but with- 
out haste, act followed act in the following decades. Their 
general tendency was to enlarge the sphere of the Parliament 
at the expense of the royal power, until the entire government 
became gradually vested in the representatives of the people 
and the monarch was reduced to a position largely orna- 
mental. Let us take note what contributions toward this 
result were made in the reign of William. 
Annual grants The first subject to be considered is the important matter 
Parliaments- 0I supplies. The Parliaments of the past had been in the 
habit of voting certain revenues for the king's lifetime, there- 
by securing to the sovereign a relative independence and 
putting it in his power not to call the legislature at all. 
William's Parliaments now fell into the habit oi^awtmaL^^ 
grants, which greatly enhanced Parliamentary influence, 
since the king, merely to keep the government going, was 
obliged to summon the Parliament every year. This system 
necessarily led to the drawing up on the part of the govern- 
ment of an annual budget of expenditures, every item of 
which fell under the lynx-eyed scrutiny of the Parliament. 
Annual budget and annual Parliament are correlated terms, 
which have secured the minute control of the purse, and 
therewith of the government itself, to the representatives of 
the nation. Hardly less important was the Mutiny Act, 
which along with the revenue arrangements just mentioned 
helped assure the annual return of Parliament* By this 
statute military courts for the punishment of mutiny and 
other acts of insubordination were authorized for one year 
only. It was a clever device for creating an army, which, 
although permanent, could never become a tool of despot- 
ism, because it was always under the hand of the Parlia- 
ment. Finally let us note that a step, constituting a 



In the Eighteenth Century 329 

magnificent tribute to the modern spirit, was the refusal Liberty of the 
(1695) to renew the act subjecting all printed matter to press ' J 9S * 
official censorship. Henceforth England enjoyed ajfree and 
unfettered press, which is the necessary accompaniment of 
a free government. 

The event of the reign of Anne (1702-14) overshadowing The War of 
all others was the War of the Spanish Succession. It has succession. 
been treated elsewhere, with due regard to the fact that Eng- 
land won in this conflict a leading position among the pow- 
ers of Europe. But Marlborough's march of victory from 
Blenheim to Malplaquet did not excite universal approval 
in England. The Tories, who were recruited largely from 
the gentry, and who nourished in religious matters exclusive 
Anglican sympathies together with a sentimental attachment 
to the Stuart connection, had never looked upon the war 
with favor. As the taxes grew heavier and the national debt 
became more burdensome, an increasing part of the popula- 
tion rallied to the opposition. It was chiefly with the aid of 
the Whigs, who were in control of the Parliament and minis- 
try, and of the duchess of Marlborough, who governed the 
easy-going, good-natured queen, that the duke was enabled 
to carry on his campaigns in the Netherlands and Germany. 
However, the duchess, who was a high-strung and arrogant 
lady, and not always capable of maintaining that polite dis- 
cretion which is the secret of success at courts, gradually fell 
out of favor, and in 1711 the queen, suddenly disgusted with 
the whole Whig connection, dismissed the Whigs from office. 
There followed a ministry of Tories, with a policy of peace 
at any price, and the result was that Marlborough was dis- 
graced, and that England signed with France, in 17 13, the 
Peace of Utrecht. Although the peace involved a breach of 
faith toward the allies, and although the negotiators did not 
get all they might have had, some of the results of English 
success upon land and sea even Tory precipitation could 



330 



England and France 



Union of 
England and 
Scotland, 1 707 



not sacrifice. England acquired from France Newfound- 
land, Nova Scotia, and the Hudson Bay territory; from 
Spain, Gibraltar and Minorca; but, best of all, she could now 
count herself without a rival upon the sea. 

While the war was at its height an event occurred of the 
greatest possible importance, the effective union of England 
and Scotland. Ever since the accession of James I. in 1603, 
the two kingdoms had had a common sovereign; but, for the 
rest, they had remained jealously independent of each other. 
In 1707 the ghost of ancient rivalry and war was laid for good 
and all by an agreement which merged the two Parliaments 
in one. Scotland henceforth sent her representatives to the 
House of Lords and House of Commons at Westminster, 
and the two nations accepted the same lot in good and evil 
fortune. The adoption of the common name of Great Brit- 
ain consecrated the partnership. 

In the year 17 14 Anne died, and the crown fell to the House 
of Hanover, whose family name is Guelph. Since the Elec- 
tress Sophia, who had been designated by the Act of Settle- 
ment as the eventual heir, had preceded Anne in death, her 
son, George I., now ascended the throne. Some great stroke 
on the part of the Pretender, the son of James II., was ex- 
pected, but when it fell (17 15), it turned out to be harm- 
less. The man who claimed to be James III. was a dull 
sybarite, and had hardly landed when his courage failed 
him and he turned back to France. 

George I. (1714-27), who owed his elevation to the Whigs, 
naturally chose his first advisers from that party. As the 
Tories were more or less compromised by their support of 
• the Stuart claim, George clung to the Whigs for thtfrest 
of his life, and thus laid the foundations of that long era"of 
Whig control which puts its stamp upon English history for 
the next fifty years. 

This prolonged power of a single party helped Parliament 



In the Eighteenth Century 331 

in taking another and a final step toward acquiring com- Development 
plete control of the state; with George_L_is associated the government, 
definite establishment of cabinet government. We have al- 
ready seen that as far back as Charles II. the Parliament was 
divided into two parties, each taking its stand upon a definite 
programme. As things stood then, even if the majority of 
the Commons happened to be Tory, the king was free to 
choose his ministry from the Whigs. Sooner or later it was 
bound to appear that such a division, permitting the ministry 
to pull one way and the Parliament another, was harmful, and 
that to attain the best results the ministry would have to be in 
accord with the majority of the Commons. The change meant 
a new loss of influence by the king, but under George I. it 
was duly effected. George was a sluggish person, not deeply 
interested in England, and not even capable of understand- 
ing the language of his new subjects. He made no effort to 
defend his prerogative against the usurping Parliament. 
Henceforth the ministry was still named by the king; but 
as no set of men who had not first assured themselves that 
they were supported by a majority in the Commons would 
undertake the administration, the party in majority practi- 
cally dictated the king's cabinet. With the annual vote of sup- 
plies, and with cabinet and party rule eTfablished as cus- 
tomary features of the English Government, the constitution 
may be said to have reached the character which distin- 
guishes it to-day. 

George's reign was a reign of peace. Peace was the Whig Walpole's rule 
programme because it furnished just the opportunity wanted senseT m0n " 
to develop the prosperity of the great middle class, upon 
which the Whigs depended against the combination of Tory 
landlord and Tory clergyman. The leading man among the 
Whigs was Sir Robert Walpole. One may sum up his platx 
form by saying that he wished to settle England under the 
Hanoverian dynasty and give free play to the commercial 



332 England and France 

and industrial energy of his countrymen. The period which 
he directed is, therefore, wel 1 entitled the era of common- 
sense. To carry out his programme, Walpole needed a steady 
majority in the Commons, which, following the dictates of his 
worldly philosophy, he got, if necessary, by corrupting mem- 
bers. "All those men have their price," he said, referring 
smilingly to a group of orators, who made a business of dis- 
playing a pretended patriotism. In spite of its gross mate- 
rialism and want of moral uplift, Walpole's government was 
in accord with the wishes and interest of the nation and 
enjoyed an unusually long lease of power. 

It was only when the Whig leader set himself against the 
people that he lost his hold. George I. had meanwhile been 
succeeded by George II. (1727-60). The new king was, 
like his father, without a spark of higher intelligence, but 
was characterized, like him, by a certain downrightness and 
solidity. Under the direction of Walpole he continued the 
peace policy of George I. until a succession of events plunged 
England, and soon all Europe, again into war. For some 
time the relations between England and Spain had been 
growing strained because English merchants were beginning 
to invade the Spanish seas. The selfish commercial monop- 
oly which Spain had established had been partially relaxed 
by an agreement called the assiento, granting to England 
certain trading privileges with the Spanish colonies. When 
the English overstepped these concessions and the Span- 
iards answered with penal measures, disputes arose which, 
growing ever more bitter, at last forced Walpole, against his 
will, to declare war. The next year the continental powers 
became involved among themselves, owing to the death of 
Emperor Charles VI. (1740) and the dispute about the 
Austrian succession. England, through her kings, who^szfc 
must never forget, were also electors of Hanover, had greater 
interest than ever in the Continent at this time. As Spain 



In the Eighteenth Century 333 

and France attacked Austria hoping to partition her, Eng- 
land, already at war with Spain and in sympathy with England's war 
Austria, presently saw herself obliged to declare war upon ^neralwar. 6 
Austria's enemy, France. The two distinct wars, that of 
England with Spain about commercial privileges and that 
of Austria with France and Spain, who were trying to dis- 
member her, were, therefore, merged in one. There followed 
the general conflict known as the War of the Austrian Suc- 
cession (1740-48). As Walpole was unsuited for an enter- 
prise of this nature, and as, moreover, he stood personally for 
peace, his majority melted away, and in 1742 he resigned. 
He had directed the destinies of England for twenty-one 
years (1721-42). 

The War of the Austrian Succession, as far as England The War of 
took a hand in it, was principally waged in the Austrian Succession 
Netherlands, which England agreed to help defend against g^; 1 ^ 6 int 
France, and upon the seas and in the colonies. On the seas of view, 
the English maintained their old mastery, but in the Nether- 
lands they and the Austrians lost ground, owing chiefly to 
the superior ability displayed by the French commander, 
Marshal Saxe. In 1745 the marshal won the great battle of 
Fontenoy and overran all the Austrian Netherlands; but 
when peace was signed in 1748, at Aix-la-Chapelle, the 
powers one and all restored their conquests, an exception 
being made only in favor of Frederick of Prussia, who was 
allowed to retain Silesia. The Anglo-Spanish war, origi- 
nating in a vital commercial issue, had become complicated 
with other questions, and when peace came the English 
negotiators drew up a treaty which scrupulously avoided the 
original question in dispute. 

A memorable incident of this war was the attempt of The invasion 
Charles Edward Stuart, son of the Pretender, and known as Pretender 1 , 112 
the Young Pretender, to win back his kingdom. The defeat I74 S- 
of the British at the battle of Fontenoy was his opportunity, 



334 England and France 

and in July, 1745, he landed, with only seven men, in the 
Highlands of Scotland. The Highlanders were at this time 
still divided into clans, at the head of which stood hereditary 
chiefs. As Celts, they were by no means friendly to the 
Teutonic Lowlanders of Scotland and to the English. More- 
over, they were practically self-governed, and were sub- 
jected to the Hanoverian king at London in hardly anything 
more than name. That Prince Charlie, as the Young Pre- 
tender was fondly called, had thrown himself upon their 
mercy, stirred their imagination and kindled their generous 
hearts to wild enthusiasm. Flocking around him in crowds, 
they advanced from point to point until by an irresistible 
rush they captured Edinburgh. For a moment the govern- 
ment at London lost its head, but when the troops had been 
hurried home from the Netherlands, it was soon found that 
the wild courage of feudal clans was of no avail against the 
discipline of a trained army. On Culloden Moor (April, 
1746) the Highlanders were defeated with fearful slaughter 
by the king's second son, the duke of Cumberland. Prince 
Charlie, after many romantic adventures, made his escape, 
but broken apparently by his one capital misfortune, he 
lived ever afterward in indolence abroad, and gave no further 
trouble (d. 1788). His failure marks the last Stuart attempt 
to recover the throne. 
The Regency While England, under Walpole, was preparing to assume 
the commercial leadership of the world, France was doing 
little or nothing to recover from the disasters of the War of 
the Spanish Succession. When the aged Louis XIV. died, 
in the year 1715, he was succeeded by his great-grandson, 
Louis XV. (1715-74). As Louis XV. was but five years old 
at the time, the government during his minority was exercised 
in his name by the nephew of Louis XIV., Philip, duke of 
Orleans. The regent Orleans, although a man of parts 
and a celebrated wit, was so passionately given to the pursuit 



in France. 



In the EigJiteentn Lentury 335 

of pleasure that he only plunged France deeper into economic 
and financial misery. Perhaps the one good point about his 
rule was that he did at least recognize the advantage of 
peace. But it was not enough to make him popular, and 
when he died, in 1723, he was regretted by none but the 
companions of his wild nights. 
Shortly after the regent's death Louis XV. was declared of Cardinal 

FlcilFV 

age, and Cardinal Fleury, the confidant of the young king, 
assumed control of affairs (1726-43). Fleury fully accepted 
Orleans's policy of peace and managed besides to reduce 
the finances to some kind of order. Nevertheless, his ad- 
ministration is marked by two wars, forced on him by cir- 
cumstances which he was too weak to command. In the 
year 1733 France became involved with Austria because of 
the different sides taken by these two powers in the election ' ' 
of a Polish king. The so-called War of the Polish Succession "France ac- 
(1733-35) is unmemorable except for the acquisition by rainef 
France of the duchy of Lorraine. Lorraine was still techni- 
cally a member of the Empire, though the hold of France had 
been steadily tightening upon it during the last hundred years. 
Now it was merged with the western kingdom, thereby com- 
pleting the long list of conquests which France had been 
making from Germany since the time of Henry II. (1552). 

In the year 1740 the death of the Emperor Charles VI. The War of 
and the accession in Austria of the young girl Maria Theresa succe'ssion 11 
so completely turned the head of the court party at Versailles £omthe _ 

1 , r J French point 

with the brilliant chance that the situation offered of war of view, 
and conquest, that Cardinal Fleury had again to yield and 
against his better judgment to declare war. The War of the 
Austrian Succession involved all Europe for eight years, 
as we have seen, but when it was closed by the Peace of 
Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), France recognized Maria Theresa 
as heir of the Hapsburg dominions, and withdrew from 
Germany without a gain. 



336 



England and France 



As we approach the middle of the eighteenth century it 
becomes plain that the struggle which Louis XIV. in- 
augurated, with the object of making France supreme in 
Europe, had ended in failure. The remedy which William 
III. of England had proposed in order to meet this aspi- 
ration — the alliance, namely, of England, the Dutch, and 
Austria — had produced the desired effect, and the Continent 
could at last afford to forget its terror of the French name, 
for the French armies had been defeated and French ag- 
gression hurled back. But in spite of disasters on the Con- 
tinent, and perhaps because of them, French colonial ex- 
pansion went on through the reign of Louis XV., and in 
North America and India was entering into ever sharper 
rivalry with England. Plainly the aim of the French was 
to compensate themselves for the failure of their European 
plans by the acquisition of an empire beyond the seas. The 
plan was natural enough, but, unfortunately, came in conflict 
with a similar purpose of the English. Accordingly, with 
the progress of the century the gaze of Frenchmen and 
Englishmen turned across the seas, and slowly the centre of 
interest, which in the long struggle of France for supremacy 
in Europe had been the Continent, shifted to the colonies. 

Such change of interest necessarily involved a subtle 
change of international relationships in Europe. In meas- 
ure as France withdrew from her aggression against her 
continental neighbors, she conciliated her ancient enemies, 
Austria and the Dutch; and in measure as she emphasized 
her colonial ambition, she aroused the increased hostility 
of England. Thus, by the gradual operation of circum- 
stances, England and France had, toward the middle of the 
eighteenth century, been brought face to face to fight out 
the great question of supremacy in the colonial world; and 
in this colonial question Austria, the old ally of England 
against France, had no immediate interest. Was Austria 



In the Eighteenth Century 337 

or any other continental power likely, under the circum- 
stances, to take part in the war? 

The war between France and England which followed, Prussia sides 
called the Seven Years' War (1756-63), is properly the most Austriawith ; 
important struggle of the ceniury, for it determined whether France - 
America and India were to be French or English. But 
though the other European powers had no direct interest in 
the colonial question, they nevertheless participated in the 
Seven Years' War. That was owing to the circumstance 
that the German powers, Austria and Prussia, had a quarrel 
of their own to settle, and that by choosing sides in the 
French-English conflict, Prussia allying herself with England 
and Austria with France, they brought about a fusion of 
two distinct issues in a general war. 

France made great sacrifices in the Seven Years' War to The Seven 
naintain her position. She sent an army over the Rhine to ^T^. **' 
cooperate with the Austrians against the Prussians and the 
English, and she prepared to defend herself in America, in 
India, and on the sea. Unfortunately, she was governed by 
an ignorant and vicious king, who was too feeble to persist 
in any policy, and who was no better than the puppet of a 
company of worthless courtiers and favorites. The real di- 
rection of French affairs during the war lay in the hands of 
the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who never 
had an inkling of the real significance of the struggle. 

While government was thus travestied in France, the Pitt, captain 
power in England fell into the hands of the capable and ° ngan • 
fiery William Pitt, known in history as the Great Com- 
moner. His ministry lasted four memorable years (1757- 
61), during which time he organized the resources of the 
country as no one had ever organized them before. Fleets 
and armies were sent forth under the stimulus of the proud 
jonvieaon that now or never England must establish her 
«i>lo»wi5 supremacy. Under these circumstances victory 



338 England and France 

necessarily fell to the English. The French army in Ger- 
many was badly beaten by Frederick the Great at Rossbach 
(1757), and later held in effective check by an Anglo-Han- 
overian force under Ferdinand of Brunswick. But the most 
signal advantages of the English were won, as Pitt intended; 
not in Europe but on the sea and in the colonies. First, 
the French were driven from the basin of the Ohio (1758) . l 
In the next year Wolfe's heroic capture of Quebec secured 
the course of the St. Lawrence, and therewith completed the 
conquest of Canada. Furthermore, in India the celebrated 
Lord Clive (victory of Plassey, 1757) crowded out the French 
and established the English influence, while the great mar- 
itime victories (1759) of Lagos and Quiberon annihilated the 
French fleet and gave England absolute control of the sea. 

In the year 1760, while the war was at its height, George 
II. died, and was succeeded by his grandson, George III. 
(1760-1820). George III. had one leading idea, which was 
to regain for himself the place in the government recently 
usurped by the Parliament. So completely was he taken 
up with this plan that the war had only a secondary in- 
terest for him. He therefore took advantage of a division 
in the cabinet to dismiss Pitt, who was identified with the 
war, from office (1761), and hotly supported Lord Bute, who 
succeeded to Pitt's position, in his efforts for peace. Al- 
though the English negotiators, in their haste to have done, 
sacrificed some important English interests, the victories of 
Peace of Paris, Pitt spoke for themselves. By the Peace of Paris (February 
17 3 ' 10, 1763) England acquired from France Canada and the 

territory east of the Mississippi River, and received the rec- 
ognition of her exclusive domination in India. 

1 The French had claimed the whole Mississippi basin, and in order to 
shut out the English they had built a fort on the upper Ohio. In 1755 
General Braddock was sent out to destroy the French fort, but refusing to 
be guided by the advice of the Virginian officer, George Washington, 
was badly beaten. When the French fort was finally taken, it was 
rebaptized Pittsburg, in honor of England's great minister. 



In the Eighteenth Century 339 

If the Seven Years' War is England's greatest triumph, The American 
she was visited soon afterward with her severest calamity. I? e 7 ™ lon ' 
In the year 1765 the British Parliament levied a tax upon 
the American colonies called the Stamp Act. When it be- 
came known that the tax aroused discontent, it was wisely 
withdrawn; but at the same time the principle was asserted 
and proclaimed that the British Parliament had the right to 
tax the colonies. As the Americans would not agree that 
they could be taxed by a body in which they were not rep- 
resented, friction grew apace and soon led to mob violence. 
The British ministry, which was under the influence of an 
ambitious and obstinate king, resorted to military force, 
and the answer of the Americans to this measure was the 
resolution to revolt (Declaration of Independence, July 4, 
1776). In 1778 the colonists, through their agent, Benja- 
min Franklin, made an alliance with France, and from this 
time on the English were -hard pressed by land and sea. 
Finally, the surrender of Yorktown (1781) to the American 
hero of the war, George Washington, disposed the mother- 
country to peace. In the Peace of Versailles (1783) Eng- The Peace of 
land made France a few unimportant colonial concessions, ^g^ 63 ' 
but the really memorable feature of the peace was the rec- 
ognition of the independence of the revolted English colonies 
under the name of the United States of America. 

This American success revived political agitation in Ire- Ireland gets 
land. We have seen how after the battle of the Boyne n°yto have it 
(1690) the Irish were literally trampled in the dust. The wtod™™- 
loss of their land and the proscription of their faith were not 
their only miseries, for they were continually exposed to the 
insults of a minority of Protestant settlers, who ruled the 
island by means of a misnamed Irish Parliament. But even 
this Protestant assembly, from which the Catholic majority 
was rigorously excluded, enjoyed no independence, since 
it could pass no act of which the British Privy Council at 



340 England and France 

London did not approve. A movement was now set on foot 
to free the local legislature from the hateful English super- 
vision; and the British ministry, frightened by the Ameri- 
can situation, so far yielded as to pass an act in favor of 
Irish Legislative Independence (1782). Unfortunately, the 
island was not pacified by this concession, for the religious 
animosities existing between the Catholic natives and the 
Protestant colonists blazed out in civil war. Riot, blood- 
shed, and massacre prevailed until the younger Pitt, son of 
the Great Commoner and Prime Minister of England, passed 
(1800) an Act of Union, which not only abolished the legis- 
lative independence lately granted, but suppressed the Irish 
Parliament altogether by incorporating it with the British 
Parliament at London. Since 1800 Ireland has been ruled 
in all respects from the English capital. 

The Act of Union did not greatly occupy the public mind. 
For when it was passed, the French Revolution, though it 
had occupied the stage for more than a decade, was still 
holding the attention of England and all the world riveted 
upon it. 



PART III 
REVOLUTION AND DEMOCRACY 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789-1815) 

References: H. Morse Stephens, Revolutionary Europe, 
1 789-181 5; Rose, The Revolutionary and Napoleonic 
Era, 1789-1815; H. Morse STEPHENS,The French Rev- 
olution, 3 vols.; Lowell, Eve of the French Revolution 
(good review of prerevolutionary France) ; De Tocque- 
ville, France before the Revolution (brilliant) ; Taine, 
The Ancient Regime; also, The French Revolution; 
also, The Modern Regime (critical works, full of matter, 
but prejudiced against the Revolution) ; Von Sybel, The 
French Revolution (powerful treatment, with emphasis 
on Europe in its relation to the Revolution) ; Cambridge 
Modern History, Vols. VIII. and IX. (embodying re- 
cent scientific results) ; H. von Holst, The French Rev- 
olution; Carlyle, The French Revolution (not so much 
history as a great epic poem; use Fletcher's edition with 
notes) ; Shailer Mathews, The French Revolution (a 
rapid review) ; Fyffe, History of Modern Europe (pop- 
ular edition), Chapters I.-XIL; Seeley, Life and Times 
of Stein; Say, Turgot; Morley, Voltaire, also Rousseau, 
also Diderot; Belloc, Danton, also Robespierre; Wil- 
lert, Mirabeau; Henderson, History of Germany, 
Vol. II., Chapters VI. -VII. ; Johnston, Napoleon, a 
Short Biography; Fournier, Napoleon the First; 
Sloane, Napoleon Bonaparte; Seeley, Short History 
of Napoleon; Rose, Life of Napoleon L, 2 vols.; Rose- 
bery, Napoleon: The Last Phase; Mahan, Influence 
of Sea Power upon the French Revolution (1793-1812). 

Source Readings: Translations and REPRiNTS,University 
of Pennsylvania, Vol. I., No. 5 (Rights of Man, Jacobin 
Club, etc.); Vol. II., No. 2 (documents mainly relating 
343 



344 



The French Revolution 



The condition 
of France at 
the end of the 
eighteenth 
century. 



Decay due to 
system of 
government. 



to Napoleon); Vol. IV^No. 5 (throws light on ancient 
regime)', Vol. V., No. 2 (protest of the cour des aides, 
revealing abuses); Vol. VI., No. 1 (French philoso- 
phers of the eighteenth century) ; Robinson, Readings, 
Vol. II., Chapter XXXIV. (prerevolutionary France); 
Chapters XXXV., XXXVI. (the Revolution); Chapters 
XXXVIL, XXXVIII. (Napoleon); Anderson, Consti- 
tutions and Documents Illustrative of the History of 
France, Nos. 1-100 (indispensable for the close stu- 
dent); Young, Travels in France, 1787-89 (an Eng- 
lish gentleman's observations); Hazen, Contemporary 
American Opinion of the French Revolution; Bour- 
rienne, Memoirs of Napoleon (interesting, not always 
reliable), 4 vols.; Madame de Remusat, Memoirs (rich 
material, charming treatment), 3 vols.; Napoleon, 
Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812. 

If the seventeenth century, which recalls the names of 
Richelieu, Colbert, and Louis XIV., was the period of the 
expansion of France, the eighteenth century, associated with 
such names as the regent Orleans, Louis XV., and Madame 
de Pompadour, proved the period of French decay. We 
have just seen that the Seven Years' War all but completed 
the ruin of the kingdom; the defeats of the armies of France 
in Germany destroyed her military prestige, and her mari- 
time disasters overthrew her naval power and deprived her 
of her colonies. But the loss of her great position was not 
the worst consequence of the Seven Years' War. The coun- 
try found itself on the conclusion of the Peace of Paris (1763) 
in such a condition of exhaustion that even patriots were 
doubtful if it would ever recover health and strength. 

The case, at first sight, seemed anomalous. Here was a 
country which in point of natural resources had the advan- 
tage over every other country of Europe; its population, 
which was estimated at 25,000,000, was greater than that of 
any rival state; and the mass of the nation had no cause to 
fear comparison with any other people as regards industry, 



The French Revolution 345 

thrift, and intelligence. If this people, endowed with such 
natural gifts and inhabiting so fertile a territory, was brought 
in the second half of the eighteenth century to the verge of 
ruin, that circumstance cannot be ascribed to any inherent 
defect in the nation. It was due solely to the system of gov- 
ernment which bound the nation together, and to the social 
iniquities which that government perpetuated. 

The reader has seen how the French king had gradually The king is 
absorbed all the functions of government, until, as Louis 
XIV. himself had boasted, the king had become the state. 
The local administration, once the prerogative of the nobility, 
had, with the overthrow of the nobility by Richelieu, been 
transferred to royal appointees, called intendants; the feudal 
assembly, or States-General, was no longer summoned; and 
whenever the supreme law-courts of the realm, known as 
Parliaments (parlements) , tried, by refusing to register a 
decree, to exercise the small measure of power which they 
possessed, the king cowed them by a royal session, called 
lit de justice. In an address delivered on the occasion of 
such a lit de justice (1766), Louis XV. could, without fear of 
contradiction, make the following assertion concerning the 
royal prerogative: "In my person resides the sovereign 
authority. I hold the legislative power and share it with 
no one. The entire public life is sustained by me." Part 
and parcel of this limitless claim was the power of arbitrary 
arrest under a lettre de cachet. This was an order signed by 
the king by virtue of which any subject might be clapped 
into prison and kept there without a trial at the king's 
pleasure. 

It is plain that such extensive duties as are contained in Louis XV. 
the pronouncement quoted above could be effectively ex- hTs S duties. 
ercised by only a superior person. Louis XIV. never failed 
at least in assiduity. But his successor, Louis XV., who 
was weak, frivolous, and incapable of sustained work, 



346 The French Revolution 

shirked the exercise of the powers which he none the less 
claimed as his due. Instead of laboring in his cabinet, he 
allowed his time to be monopolized by hunts and spectacles, 
and his vitality to be consumed by boundless dissipations. 
The result was that the business of governing fell to a greedy- 
horde of courtiers and adventuresses, who were principally 
concerned with fattening their fortunes, and who sacrificed, 
with no more regret than is expressed by a shrug of the 
shoulders and a laugh, every interest of the state. 
French society. If under Louis XV. the centralized monarchy lost its 

The clergy 

and nobility. respect abroad and its energy at home, the whole social 
fabric which that monarchy crowned exhibited no less certain 
signs of disease and decay. French society, like that of all 
Europe, had its starting-point in the feudal principle of class. 
In feudal times there had been recognized two great govern- 
ing classes, the clergy and the nobility, which, in return for 
certain fundamental services rendered by them to society, 
such as instrucjtie-ny spiritual comfort, administration of 
justice, and defence of the soil, had been granted an au- 
thoritative and patriarchal position over the people. The 
absolute monarchy of France had, to a greater extent than 
the monarchy of any other country, relieved the nobles of 
their duties by taking upon itself the administration of 
justice and the maintenance of the army. But though the 
nobility was thus deprived of its former duties, it was left 
in possession of many of its ancient rights. To illustrate 
it was not subjected to direct taxation in feudal times on 
the ground that it paid taxes in the form of military service; 
but now, though this service was no longer required, the ex- 
emption from taxation continued. Consequently, a right 
originally grounded in justice had become an iniquity. The 
other feudal order, the clergy, enjoyed a similar exemption 
from taxation, but still performed, however imperfectly, its 
former services. 



The French Revolution 347 

We are now in a position to understand why the France Clergy and 
of the eighteenth century was divided into privileged and stitutethT 11 
unprivileged classes, or into subjects who paid and subjects ^ d ^Js ged 
who did not pay. Such a division was abominable, but 
made only the beginning of the woeful tale of confirmed and 
hereditary injustice. Not only had the feudal orders become 
mere privileged orders, who did not contribute to the support 
of the government in a measure even approximately pro- 
portionate to their resources, but all the honors and emolu- 
ments were reserved to them. The officers of the army, 
which the money of the commoners supported, were chosen 
exclusively fromjhe-nobility, and all the high and remuner- 
ative posts in Church and state were open only to that class. 
In a word, a public career in France was an affair of birth. 

The membership of the two orders enjoying these ex- The resources 
tensive privileges was not very large. The noble families feged. 1 "™" 
numbered 25,000 to 30,000, with an aggregate membership 
of perhaps 140,000; and the clergy, including the various 
religious orders and the parish priests, had an approximately 
equal enrolment. These two castes between them owned 
about half the land of France, so that it could be fairly 
claimed by the indignant people that the principle of taxa- 
tion which obtained in their country was — to relieve those 
who did not need relief, and to burden those who were 
already overburdened. 

But if nobility and clergy were, comparatively speaking, Their style 
very well off, their means were not sufficient to satisfy the ° e * 
demands which their style of life made upon their purses. 
The great nobles all maintained palaces at Paris or Ver- 
sailles, where they ruined themselves by lavish entertain- 
ments, gambling, and the various excitements of an idle 
society. The great Church dignitaries, bishops and abbots, 
who were, for the most part, younger sons of noble families, 
emulated, and if anything outshone, the secular nobility by 



348 



The French Revolution 



The upper 
and the lower 
clergy. 



Progress of the 
commoners. 



the splendor of their mode of life. The result was that the 
court swarmed with a bankrupt aristocracy whose one hope 
of salvation was to plunder the public treasury under the 
polite form of an office or a pension granted by the king. 
These pensions, running up into the millions, and lavished 
upon creatures whose only merit was, as a contemporary 
writer put it, "to have taken the trouble to be born," were 
a sore affliction of the budget, and the least excusable factor 
contributing to the annual deficit. 

There is no need to say that prelates who recruited then- 
ranks from the nobility, and like the nobility spent then- 
days in hunting, gambling, and paying visits, were not suited 
to discharge their spiritual functions. But it would be a 
mistake to suppose that the careless life of the higher clergy 
was the rule among the rank and file. In the provinces there 
were to be found priests, on starvation salaries, who devoted 
themselves to their parish duties with mediaeval fervor and 
sincerity. These hardly felt that there was any bond be- 
tween them and their noble superiors, while a thousand ties 
united them to the people from whom they were sprung. A 
notable consequence of this fact was that when the Revolu- 
tion broke out the lower clergy sided with the down-trodden 
and outraged commoners against the privileged hierarchy. 

The commoners, or members of the Third Estate (tiers 
etat), who were shut out from the places of authority reserved 
to the first two estates of the realm, could win distinction in 
only two careers, business and literature. Many succeeded 
in accumulating wealth both in Paris and in the provinces, 
until their resources, constantly increased through thrift and 
hard work, far exceeded those of the nobility, who, after the 
airy fashion of their kind, concerned themselves only with 
elegantly spending what they had or could borrow. And 
now the bourgeoisie began to outstrip the nobility in other 
respects. For increase of wealth brought increase of leisure, 



The French Revolution 349 

and put at the disposal of the middle classes the means of 
culture. So it came about that in the course of the eigh- 
teenth century the Third Estate had fairly become the in- 
tellectual hearth of France. For proof one need look only 
at the influential authors and journalists of the period, such 
as Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Quesnay, Beaumarchais — 
they are almost without exception of the middle class. 

But if the well-to-do middle class, the bourgeoisie, was Misery of the 
prospering, the same can hardly be said of the vast ma- 
jority of French subjects, embracing the two classes of the 
urban wage-earners and the peasants. The class of wage- 
earners was to a large extent of recent origin, having been 
called into existence by the development of manufactures. 
Uneducated and unorganized, they were completely under the 
heel of the capitalist middle class, which controlled the com- 
mercial and industrial situation by means of its guilds, and 
shut all but old bourgeois families out of them with as much 
zeal as the nobles displayed in keeping their ranks free from 
the defilement of citizen upstarts. With reference to the 
wage-earners, the middle class was, in its turn, a privileged 
order, and we can easily understand that the oppression with 
which the bourgeoisie saddled the laborers was filling that 
body with increasing discontent. 

But the class of which the condition was most abject was, Misery of the 
undoubtedly, the peasants, whose obligations and burdens peasan 
exceeded all justice and reason. The lord of the manor ex- 
acted rent from them, the Church levied tithes, and: theiung 
collected taxes almost at will, so that often they did not have 
enough left over from their toil to satisfy the barest neces- 
sities. Considerable sections of the soil of France had. 
therefore, in the course of the last few decades been deserted 
by the peasants, and in some of the most fertile regions fam- 
ine had become an annual guest. An English gentleman, 
Arthur Young, who made a journey through France just 



35o 



The French Revolution 



Feudal obli- 
gations. 



The demand 
for reform. 



The intel- 
lectual revolt. 



before the outbreak of the Revolution, saw many smiling 
districts, but was frequently horrified by the bent, starved, 
and diseased figures which he encountered on the highways. 
The misery of the peasants, although real, has been fre- 
quently exaggerated by comparison with modern conditions. 
If we examine their status in the light of eighteenth-century 
standards, we are obliged to admit that they were better 
off than their brethren of the other continental countries. 
Above all, the French peasants were no longer serfs, although 
the memory of their former serfdom survived in certain 
vexatious feudal obligations, such as the corvee, a compul- 
sory service of a certain number of days each year upon the 
roads, and the right of the chase which reserved the game 
to the nobility. The very fact that they were free, and 
relatively prosperous and enlightened, explains why their 
protest against irrational and irritating dues was growing 
constantly more vigorous. 

A government without power, dignity, and character; a so- - 
ciety broken up into mutually hostile classes — these are the 
main features of the picture we have just examined. French 
public life in the eighteenth century had become so intol- 
erable that its dissolution was the only possible escape out 
of the perennial misery. This the thinking element began 
to see more and more clearly; and a school of writers, known 
as the philosophers, made themselves its mouthpiece, and 
clamored loudly and ever more loudly for a radical reform 
of the existing order. 

The eighteenth century is everywhere in Europe a century 
of criticism. Men had begun to overhaul the whole body 
of tradition in state, Church, and society, and to examine 
their institutional inheritances from the point of view of com- 
mon-sense. If things had been allowed to stand hitherto 
because they were indorsed by the past, they were to be per- 
mitted henceforth only because they were serviceable and 



The French Revolution 351 

necessary to the present. Reason, in other words, was to 
be the rule of life. This gospel the philosophers spread 
from end to end of Europe. They opened fire upon every- 
thing that ran counter to reason and science — upon the in- 
tolerance of the Church, upon the privileges of the nobility, 
upon the abuse. of. the royal power, upon the viciousness of 
criminal justice,, upon the oppression of the peasantry, and 
a hundred other things. 

Although the revolt against the inheritances of a feudal The leaders, 
past was universal in the eighteenth century, the leaders in 
the movement were Frenchmen. Montesquieu, Diderot, 
D'Alembert, are some of the brilliant writers of the period; 
but outshining them in fame and achievement are Voltaire 
and Rousseau. Although their names are commonly 
coupled, it is impossible to imagine two men less alike. Vol- 
taire 1 was a man of swift intelligence, caustic wit, and, 
above all, a penetrating understanding of human society, 
while Rousseau was a dreamer, who shut his eyes upon an 
artificial and repulsive civilization in order to fashion with 
his mind a society founded upon justice, goodness, liberty, 
and equality. Each set in motion a current of revolt which 
gradually undermined the existing Church, government, and 
society, and left them standing as a hollow shell, to fall, at 
the outbreak of the Revolution, like the walls of Jericho at 
the first blast of the trumpet. 

A society which has become thoroughly discredited in The chronic 
the minds of those who compose it, is likely to go to pieces tf 

at any moment and through any chance occasion. The 
agency which directly led up to the French Revolution, and 
sounded the signal, as it were, for the dissolution of the 

1 Voltaire (1604-1778) wrote tragedies, epics, tales, and other pieces of 
pure literature, but is now chiefly remembered by his historical labors, 
such as The Age of Louis XIV., The Age of Louis XV., and the Essay 
on Manners. Rousseau (1712-78) wrote one novel, La Nouvelle Heloise, 
but his most famous productions are a treatise on government, called The 
Social Contract, and a wonderful autobiography. The Confessions. 



352 



The French Revolution 



ancien regime, was the state of the finances. The debts 
of Louis XIV. had been increased by the wars and extrav- 
agances of Louis XV., so that by the middle of the eighteenth 
century France was confronted by a chronic deficit. As 
long as Louis XV. reigned (1715-74), the deficit was covered 
by fresh loans, a device which, though dangerous, did not 
arouse any apprehension in that monarch's feeble mind. 
"Things will hold together till my death," he was in the 
habit of saying complacently, and his friend Madame de 
Pompadour added, with an air of indifference, "After us, 
the deluge! " 

When Louis XVI. (1774-92) succeeded his grandfather, 
the question of financial reform would not brook any further 
delay. The new king was, at his accession, only twenty 
years old. He was honestly desirous of helping his people, 
but he had, unfortunately, neither the energy nor the in- 
telligence necessary for developing a programme and carry- 
ing it through in spite of opposition. His queen, Marie 
Antoinette, the daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria, was 
a gossamer creature, lovely and vivacious, but young, inex- 
perienced, and utterly thoughtless. 

The fifteen years from Louis's accession to the outbreak 
of the Revolution (1774-89) constitute a period of unin- 
termitted struggle with the financial distress. The question 
was how to make the revenues meet the expenditures. New 
taxes proved no solution, for excessive taxation had already 
reduced the country to starvation, and where there was 
nothing to begin with, no tax-gatherer's art could squeeze 
out a return. Plainly, the only feasible solution was reform. 
The lavish expenditure of the court would have to be cut 
down; the waste and peculation in the administration would 
have to cease; and the taxes would have to be redistributed, 
so as to put the burdens upon the shoulders that could beai 
them. For the consideration of these matters Louis at first 



The French Revolution 353 

called into his cabinet a number of eminent men. Among Turgot and 
his ministers of finance were the economist Turgot (1774-76) ec er- 
and the banker Necker (first ministry, 1778-81; second 
ministry, 1788-90). Both men, especially Turgot, who was 
a statesman of the first order, labored earnestly at reform, 
but both failed to overcome the opposition of the courtieia^,. 
who would consent neither to retrench their expenses nor to 
give up their privileges. 

In consequence, there was nothing to do but continue the Absolutism 
old ruinous policy of covering the deficit by means of loans, 
and by persistence in this insane policy to undermine the 
national credit and march helplessly toward bankruptcy. 
When even loans were no longer to be had, the king, driven 
into a corner, appealed, as a last resort, to the nation. The 
step was in itself a revolution, for it contained the admission 
that the absolute monarchy had failed. In May, 1789, 
there assembled at Versailles, in order to take counsel with 
the king about the national distress, the States-General of 
the realm. 

The States-General was the old feudal assembly of France, The States- 
composed of the three orders, the clergy, the nobles, and the General - 
commoners. As the States- General had been relegated to 
the garret by the absolute monarchy and had not met for 
one hundred and seventy-five years, it was not strange that 
nobody was acquainted with its mode of procedure. So 
much was .certain, however, that the assembly had formerly 
voted by orders, and that the vote of the privileged orders, 
being two against one, had always been decisive. 

The first question which arose in the assembly was whether The States- 

the feudal orders should be allowed this traditional supremacy ^teitfelf 011 " 

in th« revived States-General. Among the members of the into the Na- 

• ° tionalAssem- 

Third Estate, as the commoners were called in France, there bly. 

was, of course, only one answer. These men held that the 

new States-General was representative not of the old feudal 



354 



The French Revolution 



realm, but of the united nation, and that every member, 
therefore, must have an equal vote. In other words, the 
commoners maintained that the vote should not be taken 
by orders but individually. As they had been permitted to 
send twice as many delegates (six hundred) as either clergy or 
nobility (three hundred each) , it was plain that their propo- 
sition would give them the preponderance. The clergy and 
nobility, therefore, offered a stubborn resistance; but after 
a month of contention the Third Estate cut the knot by 
boldly declaring itself, with or without the feudal orders, 
the National Assembly (June 17 th). Horrified by this 
act of violence the king and the court tried to cow the 
commoners by a sharp summons to submit to the old pro- 
cedure, but when they refused to be frightened, the king 
himself gave way, and ordered the clergy and nobility to 
join the Third Estate (June 27th). Thus, at the very begin- 
ning of the Revolution, the power passed out of the hands 
of the king and feudal orders into the hands of the people, 



The National Assembly (1789-91). 

The National Assembly, which thus began its work with 
the avowed purpose of regenerating France, was composed 
of the most intelligent men the country could boast. More- 
over the members were animated by a pure enthusiasm to 
serve the nation. In fact, it was impossible to live in that 
momentous year of 1789 without feeling that an unexampled 
opportunity had arrived for helping France and all mankind 
forward on the road of civilization. In this magnanimous 
spirit the Assembly directed its labors from the first day. 
Unfortunately, a fatal defect seriously detracted from this 
generous disposition. The Assembly, composed of theorists 
totally inexperienced in the practical affairs of government, 
was prone to treat all questions as occasions for the dis- 



The French Revolution 355 

play of an emotional eloquence, and to formulate decrees 
beautiful in the abstract, but hopelessly out of relation to the 
concrete facts. 

When the Assembly convened there existed as yet no po- The leaders, 
litical parties. But gradually parties began to form about 
the men who, by virtue of their talents, took the lead. Only 
a few of these can be pointed out here. The Marquis de 
Lafayette had won a great name for himself by the mag- 
nanimous offer of his sword, when a young man, to the 
cause of freedom in America. Though a nobleman by birth, 
he sympathized with the people and rallied all generous 
hearts around himself. No man during the first stage of the 
Revolution had a greater following within and without the 
Assembly. The best representative of the current dog- 
matic and philosophical spirit was the Abbe Sieyes. He 
carried to absurd lengths the idea that government was a 
clever mechanism, capable of being constructed in accord- 
ance with preconceived ideas. When one constitution failed, 
he was always ready, like a political conjurer, to shake 
another out of his sleeve. Then there was the lawyer Robes- 
pierre. His circle, though not large at first, made up for its 
smallness by the stanchness of its devotion to the dapper 
little man who made it his business to parade on all occa- 
sions a patriotism of an incorruptible Roman grandeur. 
But the member who rose head and shoulders above the rest 
of the Assembly was Count Mirabeau. Mirabeau was a 
born statesman, perhaps the only man in the whole Assem- 
bly who instinctively knew that a government could not be 
fashioned at will by a committee of philosophers, but to be 
worth anything must be the natural outcome of the moral, 
economic, and historical forces of the nation. He wished, 
therefore, while preserving the monarchy, to nationalize it 
by injecting into its dry arteries the fresh blood of the peo- 
ple. Abolition of privileges and a constitution with a strong 



356 



The French Revolution 



Calamitous 
influence of 
the masses. 



Failure of the 
authority of 
the king and 
the Assembly. 



monarchical element were the two leading articles of his pro- 
gramme. Unfortunately, he never succeeded in acquiring 
a guiding influence. In the first place, he was a noble, and 
therefore subject to suspicion; and, further, his early life 
had been a succession of scandals, which now rose up 
and bore witness against him, undermining confidence in 
his honor. 

The National Assembly had no hesitation in designating 
as its primary business the making of a free constitution. 1 
It was of the highest importance that this work should be 
done in perfect security, free from the interference of popu- 
lar passion and violence. But, owing to the excitement and 
fervor which permeated all classes, the As.sembly.-,soon fell 
under the domination of the street. The growth of the in- 
fluence of the lower elements, who, while desiring reform, 
created anarchy, is the most appalling feature of the great 
events of 1789. If we understand this fact, we have the 
key to the rapid degeneration of what was, at its outset, 
perhaps the most promising movement in the history of 
mankind. 

For this degeneration the king and the Assembly were 
both responsible, as well by reason of what they did as of 
what they did not do. It goes without saying that the sud- 
den failure of absolutism in June, 1789, demoralized the 
government and threw France into unutterable confusion. 
Parisian mobs frequently fell upon and murdered the royal 
officials, while the excited peasants everywhere burned and 
plundered the castles of the nobles. In view of these irreg- 
ularities, king and National Assembly should have united 
to maintain order; but unite they would not, because the 
king, who was under the domination of the court, distrusted 
the popular Assembly, and because the Assembly feared the 



1 For this reason the National Assembly is known also as the Constituent 
Assembly. 



The French Revolution 357 

designs of the court and the king. Mutual suspicion ruined 
harmony and played into the hands of the agitators. 

And, in fact, early in July it was discovered that the court The fall of the 
was plotting to dissolve the Assembly and overawe the Pa- x ^ z \^ 
risians by means of troops. At this news a tremendous ex- 
citement seized the people. Armed crowds gathered in the 
streets, and clamorous to teach the court a lesson, threw 
themselves upon the Bastille, the ancient state prison and 
royal fortress in the heart of Paris. After a bloody encoun- 
ter with the troops, they took the gloomy stronghold, and in \ 
their fury razed it to the ground (July 14th). \ 

The fall of the Bastille was celebrated throughout France Expected reign 
as the end of tyranny and the dawn of a new era of broth- equaht/'and 
erly love. And in truth there was much suggestive of a new fra termty. 
order of things in the destruction of a monument which had 
been the witness of the brutalities of mediaeval justice, and 
of the wanton oppression of the absolute king. Now in- 
deed we know that July 14th did not inaugurate a reign of lib- 
erty, equality, and fraternity; but it is not difficult to under- 
stand why the French people, cherishing the memory of 
their generous illusion, should have made July 14th their 
national holiday. 

The king at Versailles did not misread the lesson which The 
the episode of the Bastille pointed. All thought of violence enugra lon 
was temporarily dropped, and the irreconcilables of the court 
party, with the king's brother, the count of Artois, at their 
head, left France in disgust. Thus began the so-called emi- 
gration, which, continuing for the next few years, soon col- 
lected on the borders of France, chiefly along the Rhine, 
hundreds and thousands of the old privileged classes, who 
preferred exile to the threatened ascendancy of popular 
government. 

The storming of the Bastille promised at first to clarify The National 
the situation. Again the king made his bow to the Revo- Lafayette. 



358 The French Revolution 

lution: he paid a formal visit to Paris as a pledge of recon- 
ciliation, and was received with acclamations of joy. The 
well-to-do citizens for their part seemed to be resolved to 
have done with violence and follow the way of sensible re- 
form. They organized a militia called the National Guard, 
in order to secure Paris from the excesses to which the city 
had lately been exposed, and made the popular Lafayette 
commander. However, the condition of the capital remained 
most precarious. The multitude of the idle was growing 
in numbers every day, and their misery, which the general 
stoppage of business steadily sharpened, was pushing them 
to the brink of savagery. It was a question whether Lafay- 
ette, with his citizen-guard, would be willing or able to chain 
the people when a new access of passion lashed them into 
fury. 

The test came soon enough. In October the rumor of 
another plot on the part of the remnant of the court party 
ran through Paris. Excited men and women told one an- 
other that at a banquet of officers, held at Versailles, the new 
tricolor cockade of red, blue, and white, the passionately 
adored emblem of the Revolution, had been trampled under 
foot, and the health of the king and queen drunk amid 
scenes of wild enthusiasm. What really happened was an 
act of homage, perhaps unnecessarily provocative, on the part 
of the army toward its sovereign; but suspicion of the king 
and court had sunk so deeply into the hearts of the Paris- 
ians that every disparagement of the monarch, however un- 
founded, was sure to find an audience. Demagogues an- 
nounced that the king was the cause of the famine in the 
city, and that he and the court intercepted the grain-carts 
outside of Paris in order to reduce the patriots to starvation. 
On the morning of October 5th, 10,000 women, fierce and 
haggard from long suffering, set out for Versailles to fetch 
the king to Paris. As they straggled over the muddy roads 



The French Revolution 359 

all the male and female riff-raff of the suburbs joined them. 
In the face of this tremendous danger Lafayette, the com- 
mander of the militia and guardian of the civil order, did 
nothing. If, as has been supposed, he remained inactive in 
order to get the king into his power, he has fairly merited 
the charge of political trickery. Certain it is that it was 
only when the National Guard refused to wait longer that 
he consented to conduct it to Versailles, and preserve peace. 
When he arrived there in the night, some hours after the 
women, he found everything in the greatest confusion; but 
by his timely intercession he saved the lives of the royal fam- 
ily, and was enabled to pose as the preserver of the mon- 
archy. But if the rioters spared the king and queen, they 
declared firmly, at the same time, that they would be satisfied 
with nothing short of the removal of the royal residence to 
Paris. What could the king do but give his consent? On 
the 6th the terrible maenads, indulging in triumphant song 
and dance along the road, escorted to the palace of the 
Tuileries "the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's little 
boy," from whose presence in their midst they promised 
themselves an end of misery. The National Assembly, of 
course, followed the king, and was quartered in the riding- 
school near the palace. 

The events of October 5th and 6th ruined the monarchy, The people 
and Lafayette cannot escape the charge of having contrib- supreme, 
uted in some measure to the result. The king at the Tuile- 
ries, indeed, was now practically Lafayette's prisoner; but 
Lafayette himself, even though it took him some months to 
find it out, was henceforth the prisoner of the people. The 
great October days had allowed "the patriots," as the agita- 
tors euphemistically called themselves, to realize their power; 
and having once eaten of the poisonou? fruit of violence, 
they would require more than Lafayette's energy to bring 
them back to a respect for the law. Henceforth, organized 



360 The French Revolution 

under clever and unscrupulous leaders, "the patriots" play 
the decisive role in the Revolution, gradually but resistlessly 
forcing the king, Lafayette, the National Assembly, and all 
the constituted authorities of France to bow down before 
them. 
The clubs. What greatly contributed to the power of the multitude was 

the excitement and vague enthusiasm which possessed all 
classes alike. We must always remember, in order to under- 
stand the tremendous pace at which the Revolution devel- 
oped, that the year 1789 marks an almost unparalleled agita- 
tion of public opinion. A leading symptom of this condition 
were the innumerable pamphlets and newspapers which>G- 
companied the events of the day with explanatory comment, 
and not infrequently assumed the form of fanatical exhor- 
tation. But the most prominent and unique witness of the 
disturbed state of opinion was offered by the clubs. Clubs 
for consultation and debate became the great demand of the 
hour; they arose spontaneously in all quarters; in fact, every 
coffee-house acquired, through the passion of its frequenters, 
Cordeliers and the character of a political association. Of all these unions 
Jacobins. ^ j aco bi ns an( j t ne Cordeliers soon won the most influen- 

tial position. The Cordeliers recruited their numbers from 
among the Parisian "patriots"; Danton and Marat were 
among their leaders, and the tone of the club was, from the 
first, wildly revolutionary. The Jacobins, destined to be- 
come a name of dread throughout Europe, began much 
more gently. They offered a meeting-point for the consti- 
tutional and educated elements, and rapidly spread in num- 
berless branches, or so-called daughter societies, over the 
length and breadth of France. However, this club, too, suc- 
cumbed before long to the extreme revolutionary tendencies. 
Lafayette, Sieyes, and Mirabeau, whose power was at first 
dominant, were gradually displaced by Robespierre, and 
Robespierre, once in authority, skilfully used the club as 



The French Revolution 361 

a means of binding together the radical opinion of the 
country. 

Throughout the years 1789 and 1790 the National As- The abolition 
sembly was engaged in meeting current issues, and in mak- August 4th. ' 
ing a constitution. The great question of the~"prTvileges, N 
which had proved unsolvable in the early years of Louis 
XVI., caused no difficulties after the National Assembly had 
once been constituted. On August 4, 1789, the nobility and 
clergy, in an access of magnanimity, renounced voluntarily 
their feudal rights, and demanded that they be admitted 
into the body of French citizens on a basis of equality. 
August 4th saw the last of the corvee, rights of the chase, 
guilds, and other forms of mediaeval injustice, and is one of 
the great days of the Revolution. 

But one burning question inherited from the ancien regime Financial 
remained — the question of the finances. Since the general Assembly. 6 
cessation of business which attended the Revolution con- 
tributed to the depletion of the treasury, the National As- 
sembly, in order to avoid imminent bankruptcy, resolved, 
in November, 1789, to confiscate the property of the clergy, 
valued at many millions, and presently issued against this 
new security paper money called assignats. The assignats 
at the beginning were a perfectly sound financial measure, 
but owing to the continued needs of the treasury they were 
multiplied to such a degree that confidence in them was un- 
dermined and their value shrunk to almost nothing. Al- 
ready the time was not far off when it would take a basket 
of assignats to buy a pair of boots. Under these condi- 
tions the finances fell into frightful disorder, and by per- 
manently deranging the business of the country contributed 
in no small measure to the increasing anarchy of the Rev- 
olution. 

In the intervals of the discharge of current business, the Thenewcorv 
Assembly deliberated concerning the future constitution of s 1 u loa ' 



362 The French Revolution 

France. By slow degrees that creation marched during the 
succeeding months to completion. Of course it is not pos- 
sible to examine it here with any detail. If we remember 
that it was the work of men who had suffered from an ab- 
solute executive and were under the spell of the dogmatic 
philosophy of the eighteenth century, we shall understand 
its principal feature. This was that -the executive was made 
purposely weak, and the power intrusted to the people^and- 
the legislature. This legislature, it was provided, should 
consist of one House, elected for two years by all the active 
citizens 1 of the kingdom. Mirabeau, the great statesman 
of the Revolution, fought hard to secure to the king that 
measure of power which an executive requires in order to be 
efficient; but he was unappreciated by his colleagues and 
distrusted by Louis, and in almost all important matters met 
Death of defeat. Broken down by disappointment and reckless ex- 

April, 1 791. cesses he died (April, 1791), prophesying in his last days, 
with marvellous accuracy, all the ulterior stages of the Rev- 
olution. 
Theunsatis- The death of Mirabeau was generally lamented, but no 

oTthelmg! 10n one na d more reason for regret than the king, who had 
found in the statesman his most valuable supporter. Ever 
since October 6th, Louis had been the virtual prisoner of 
the populace, and had lost all influence in the shaping of 
events. The constitution, which in the spring of 1791 was 
nearing completion and would soon be forced upon him, he 
regarded as impracticable. While Mirabeau lived he re- 
tained some hope of a change among the legislators in his 
favor; but when the great orator's death robbed him of this 
prospect, his thoughts turned to flight as the only means of 
escaping from a position which he regarded as untenable, 



1 Citizens were divided by this constitution into two classes, active and 
passive. Only the active class, composed of those who paid a certain small 
contribution in the form of a direct tax, could vote. 



The French Revolution 363 

and which exposed his queen, his children, and all who were 
dear to him to the insults of the Parisian multitude. 

The flight of the king and royal family was arranged with The flight to 
the greatest secrecy for the night of June 20th. But too I79I . 
confident of his disguise as a valet, Louis exposed himself 
needlessly at a post-station, only to be recognized by the son 
of the postmaster, who galloped through the night to give 
the alarm.' At the village of Varennes the bells sounded 
the tocsin, and the excited people, summoned from their 
beds, would not permit the royal carriage to proceed. With 
safety almost in view the flight came to an end. The fugi- 
tives were brought back to Paris, where once more they had 
the key turned on them in their palatial prison. 

The flight of the king divided opinion in Paris sharply. The monarch- 
It gave the monarchists, who had a clear majority in the rem^atesthe 
Assembly, their first inkling that they had gone too far. A kin s- 
monarch was necessary to their constitutional fabric, and 
now they beheld their chosen representative attempting to 
elude the honor by running away from it. They began in 
consequence to exhibit suddenly for the captive and dis- 
armed Louis a consideration which they had never accorded 
him in his happier days. Many popular leaders, on the 
other hand, such as Danton and Robespierre, regarded the 
flight as an abdication and a welcome pretext for proclaim- 
ing the republic. A struggle followed (July, 1791), the 
most ominous which Paris had yet witnessed; but the mon- 
archists were still a majority, and by ordering out the Na- 
tional Guard against the rioters, won a victory. The As- 
sembly, on hearing from the king the doubtful statement 
that he had never meant to leave the soil of France, nor 
employ force against his subjects, solemnly welcomed him 
back to office; and Louis, in return, to mark his reconcilia- 
tion with his subjects, accepted and swore to observe the 
constitution. The Assembly was pleased to imagine that 



364 



The French Revolution 



End of the 
Assembly. 



it had, by its magnanimous reinstatement of the king, set- 
tled all the difficulties of the situation. By September 30, 
1 79 1, it had added the last touches to its work, and, dissolv- 
ing itself, retired from the scene. Its strenuous labors of 
two years, from which the enthusiasts had expected the ren- 
ovation of old Europe, culminated in the gift to the nation 
of the completed constitution. The question now was: 
Would the constitution at length inaugurate the prophesied 
era of peace and plenty? 

Herewith ended what we may call the first phase of the 
Revolution. The privileges had been abolished and the 
absolute monarchy had, at the almost unanimous demand 
of the people, been transformed into a constitutional one; 
but still men and opinions continued to clash in a bloody 
and ominous manner. In this state of unrest a particular 
reason for apprehension lay in the circumstance that the 
government had not been given power enough to defend 
itself, let alone guide and control the nation. 



Character of 
the Legislative 
Assembly. 



The Legislative Assembly (October 1, 1791, to September 21, 
1792). 

The First Legislative Assembly, elected on the basis of the 
new constitution, met the day after the National Assembly 
adjourned. By a self-denying ordinance, characteristic of 
the mistaken magnanimity which pervaded the National 
Assembly, that body had voted the exclusion of its members 
from the succeeding legislature. The seven hundred and 
forty-five new rulers of France were, therefore, all men with- 
out experience. That alone constituted a grave danger, 
which was still further increased by the fact that most of the 
members were young enthusiasts, who owed their political 
elevation to the oratorical vigor displayed by them in the local 
Jacobin clubs. 



The FrencJi Revolution 365 

The dangerous disposition of the Assembly became ap- is hostile to 
parent as soon as the members fell into party groups. Only thekin s- 
a minority, called the Feuillants, undertook to support the 
constitution. On the other hand, a very influential group, 
called the Gironde, 1 favored the establishment of a republic. 
Thus constituted, the Assembly from the first day directed 
its energies upon destroying the monarchy. The stages by 
which it accomplished its purpose we need not here con- 
sider; but the supreme blow against the king was delivered 
when he was forced to declare war against Austria; and ex- 
cept for this declaration, which marks a new mile-stone in 
the Revolution, we can in a sketch like this forget the Leg- 
islative Assembly entirely. 

The declaration of war against Austria resulted from the France de- 
rising indignation in France over the emigres, who had upon Austria, 
gathered in armed bands along the Rhine, and over the in- A P ril > I 79 3 - 
creasing demonstrations of monarchical Europe against the 
Revolution. Frenchmen generally supposed that Emperor 
Leopold II., brother of Queen Marie Antoinette, was plan- 
ning a war to punish them for their opinions. This we now 
know was not the case; but Leopold certainly took some 
steps that the French were justified in interpreting as inter- 
ference with their affairs. Lashed into fury by the Girondist 
orators, who wanted war on the ground that it would prove 
the means of carrying the republican faith to the ends of 
the earth, the Assembly assumed a more and more lofty tone 
with the emperor, and finally, on April 20, 1792, declared 
war against him. 

Unfortunately, Leopold, who was a moderate and capable Prussia in 
man, had died a month before the declaration was made, Austria. 
and it was his dull and narrow-minded son, Francis II. 
(1792-183 5), who was called to do battle with the Revolu- 



1 So called from the fact that the leaders of the party hailed from the 
department of the Gironde (Bordeaux). 



366 



The French Revolution 



Invasion and 
terror. 



The proclama- 
tion of 
Brunswick. 



tion. But the far-sighted Leopold had not died without 
making some provision for an eventual war with France. 
In February, 1792, alarmed by the hostile attitude of the 
French people, he had persuaded the king of Prussia to 
league himself with him in a close alliance. The declara- 
tion of April 20th, therefore, though directed only at Aus- 
tria, brought Prussia also into the field. Thus began the 
wars which were destined to carry the revolutionary ideas 
around the world, to sweep away landmarks and traditions, 
and to lock France and Europe in death-grapple for over 
twenty years. 

It is probable that the republican Girondists, who more 
than any man or party were responsible for the war and 
proudly looked upon it as theirs, expected an easy victory. 
They saw in a vision the thrones of the tyrants crumbling 
at the h resistible onset of the new democracy, and them- 
selves hailed everywhere as the liberators of the human race. 
But the first engagement brought a sharp disappointment. 
The undisciplined French forces, at the mere approach of 
the Austrians, scampered away without risking a battle, and 
when the summer came it was known that the Austrians and 
Prussians together were preparing an invasion of France. 
At chis unexpected turn wrath and terror filled the repub- 
licans in Paris. They began to whisper the word treason, 
and soon their orators dared to denounce the king pub- 
licly as the author of the national calamities. In August 
the allies crossed the border and proceeded on their march 
to the capital. Excitement rose ever to new heights, and 
when the duke of Brunswick, the commander-in-chief of 
the allies, threatened, in an outrageous proclamation, to 
wreak an unexampled vengeance on the capital if but a 
hair of the king's head were injured, the seething passion 
burst in a wave of uncontrollable fury. In the early morn- 
ing of August 10th the mob, organized by the republican 



The French Revolution 367 



leaders, marched against the Tuileries to overthrow the man 
whom the orators had represented as in league with foreign 
despots against the common mother, France. 

When, during the night, the bells from the steeples rang August io, 
out the preconcerted summons over the city, the king and l792 ' 
his family knew that the supreme struggle had come. Dis- 
persed about in small groups, the palace inmates passed the 
night discussing the chances of the coming day. Of all the 
soldiers a regiment of Swiss mercenaries could alone be 
counted on. That fact tells more vividly than words the 
pass to which the ancient monarchy of France had come. 
But even so, if Louis XVI. had now resolved to conquer or 
die at the head of this faithful guard, he might have rallied 
the moderates around the throne. But from this king no 
such action was to be expected. He could be patient, tolerant 
of ideas beyond his grasp, and even generous to his enemies, 
but he could not form a heroic resolution. At eight o'clock 
in the morning, seeing that the mob was making ready to 
storm the palace, he abandoned it to seek shelter with the 
Legislative Assembly. The Swiss Guard, deserted by their 
leader, made a brave stand. Only on the king's express 
order did they give up the Tuileries and attempt to effect a 
retreat. But the odds were against them; and the enraged 
populace, falling upon them, butchered most of them in the 
streets. 

Meanwhile, the Assembly was engaged in putting its ofn- End of the 
cial seal to the verdict of the mob. In the presence of Louis f t h e C on- 
and the royal family the members voted the suspension of stlt ution. 
the king and ordered the election of a National Conven- 
tion to constitute a new government. The present Assembly 
agreed to hold over till September 21st, the day when the 
new body was ordered to meet. Thus perished, after an 
existence of ten months, the constitution which had in- 
flamed so many generous hearts. 



368 



The French Revolution 



The suspension of the king left the government in the 
hands of the Legislative Assembly and a ministerial com- 
mittee. But as the capital was in the hands of the mob and 
nobody paid any attention to the authorities, the real power 
fell into the hands of the leaders who on August ioth had 
the courage to strike down the king. Danton, provisional 
minister of justice, was the most capable member of the 
group. To make success doubly sure they had, in the 
early morning hours of August ioth, seized the municipal 
government of Paris and now lay intrenched in the city hall 
or hotel ale ville. Robespierre and Marat, acting from this 
local center, and Danton, from his post of national influ- 
ence, were the real sovereigns of France during the interlude 
from August ioth, the day of the overthrow of the monarchy, 
to September 21st, the day of the meeting of the National 
Convention. 

It was plain that the first need of France in this crisis was 
to beat back the invasion. The victors of the tenth of 
August, therefore, made themselves the champions of the 
national defence. Their orators steeled the hearts of the 
citizens by infusing into them an indomitable courage. 
"What do we require in order to conquer?" cried Danton, 
the man of the hour: "to dare, and dare, and dare again." 
The fatherland was declared in danger; all occupations 
ceased but those which provided for the necessities of life 
and the manufacture of weapons; finally, the whole male 
population was ordered under arms. Whatever we may 
think of this travesty of government by violence and fren- 
zied enthusiasm, it certainly accomplished its first end, for 
it put an army into the field composed of men who were 
ready to die, and so saved France. 

Let us turn for a moment to the invasion of the two Ger- 
man powers, the immediate cause of these Parisian disturb- 
ances. By September 20th Brunswick, at the head of an 



*! 1 




v 

The French Revolution 369 

army composed chiefly of Prussians, had got to Valmy. 
There he was so furiously cannonaded by the eastern army 
under the command of Dumouriez that, deeply discouraged, 
he ordered a retreat which became almost a rout. In a few 
weeks not a Prussian or Austrian was left upon French soil. 

This patriotic success of the radical democrats was un- TheSeptem- 
fortunately marred by a succession of frightful crimes. To er massacres 
understand them we must once again picture to ourselves 
the state of France. The country was in anarchy, the power 
in the hands of a few men, resolute to save their country. 
They were a thoroughly unscrupulous band, the Dantons, 
the Marats, and their colleagues, and since they could not 
afford to be disturbed in their work of equipping armies by 
local risings among the supporters of the king, they resolved 
to cow the monarchists, still perhaps a majority, by a sys- 
tem of terror. They haled to the prisons all whom they sus- 
pected of being devoted to the king, and in the early days 
of September they emptied the crowded cells by a deliberate 
massacre of the inmates. An armed band of assassins made 
the round of the prisons, and in the course of three days 
despatched nearly two thousand helpless victims. Not a 
hand was raised to stop the hideous proceedings. Paris, to 
all appearances, looked on stupefied. 

The National Convention {September 21, 1792, to October 
26, 1795). 

The short interlude of government by an irresponsible The National 

faction came to an end when the National Convention met me etsand 

(September 21st) and assumed control. This body imme- abolisn es 
\ monarchy. 

diately declared the monarchy abolished. The defeat of 
the allies at Valmy about this time freed France from all 
immediate danger from without, and enabled the Conven- 
tion to concern itself with domestic affairs. 



37o 



The French Revolution 



Trial and 
death of the 
king. 



In the precarious condition in which France then found 
herself, everything depended upon the composition of the 
new governing body. It was made up of nearly eight hun- 
dred members, all republicans; but republicans of various 
degrees of thoroughness. The Gironde, known to us from 
the previous Assembly, had considerable strength, but its 
control of the Convention was contested by the Mountain, 1 
a much more radical party, made up chiefly of men like 
Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, who had overthrown the 
monarchy and governed France during the last few weeks. 
The Gironde was composed of speculative philosophers, who 
saw no reason for further illegality and violence now that 
the king was deposed and that hope of mankind, the re- 
public, assured. The men of the Mountain were of a more 
fierce and practical turn, and concentrated their attention 
in the present crisis upon the one pressing business of de- 
fending France. Between these two groups, and perma- 
nently attached to neither, was the great bulk of the depu- 
ties, called the Plain. Whichever, Gironde or Mountain, 
could sway the Plain, would possess a majority and rule 
France. 

That the chasm between the Gironde and Mountain was 
absolutely unbridgeable was shown when the Convention 
took up the important business of the trial of the king. 
Ever since August ioth Louis and his family had been closely 
confined in prison. In December the deposed monarch was 
summoned before the Convention. The Girondists, ami- 
able dreamers for the most part, would have spared his 
life, but the Mountainists, backed by the threats of the mob, 
carried the Plain with them. By a very small majority the 
citizen Louis Capet, once Louis XVI. , was condemned to 
death, and on January 21, 1793, was beheaded by the newly 



1 So called from the fact that the members took their seats upon the 
highest tiers of benches. 



The French Revolution 371 

invented machine, called the guillotine. On that eventful 
day no hand was raised to save the monarch, who, however 
he may have failed in intelligence and energy, had given 
abundant proof of his devotion to the interests of his people 
as he understood them. , 

The execution of the king raised a storm of indignation The first Euro- 

-r-, , ,.,. r • i . . r • pean coalition 

over Europe, and a great coalition, which every state of 1m- against France, 
portance joined, sprang to life for the purpose of punishing 
the regicides of the Convention. The deputies, nothing loath, 
accepted and even anticipated the challenge. Thus the war 
with Austria and Prussia promised to assume immense pro- 
portions in the coming year. The members of the great 
coalition planned to attack France from every side, and 
humble her pride in one rapid campaign. The English 
were to sweep down upon her coasts, the Spaniards to cross 
the Pyrenees and attack France from the south, the Pied- 
montese to pour over the Alps, and the Austrians and Prus- 
sians to operate in the eastern provinces, in Belgium, and 
along the Rhine. Under these circumstances the question 
of the defence of the French soil became again, as it had 
been in the summer of 1792, the supreme question of the 
hour. It was plain that in order to meet her enemies, who 
were advancing from every point of the compass, France 
would have to be united and display an almost superhuman 
energy. 

The new crisis quickly developed the animosities between Overthrow of 
Gironde and Mountain into implacable hatred. There can 
be no doubt that both sides were equally patriotic; but the 
immediate issue was not patriotism so much as the most 
practical means for meeting the threatening invasions. The 
philosophers of the Gironde insisted on presenting moral 
scruples about the September massacres and other irregulari- 
ties, but because the case would not wait upon such niceties, 
the fanatics of the Mountain resolved to strike their rivals 



372 



The French Revolution 



The Mountain 
supreme. 



down. Mobs were regularly organized by Marat to invade 
the Convention and howl at its bar for the heads of the 
Girondist leaders. Finally, on June 2, 1793, thirty-one of 
them, among whom were the brilliant orators Vergniaud, 
Isnard, Brissot, and Gensonne, were excluded from the As- 
sembly and put under arrest. 

The fall of the Girondists meant the removal of the last 
check upon the ferocity of the Mountain. The power now 
lay in its hands to use as it would, and the most immediate 
end of power, the Mountain had always maintained, was 
the salvation of France from her enemies. To accomplish 
that great purpose the Mountain now deliberately returned 
to the successful system of the summer of 1792 — the system 
of terror. This phase of the Revolution, which is famous 
as the Reign of Terror — it could appropriately be called the 
Long Reign of Terror, in order to distinguish it from the 
Short Reign of Terror of August and September, 1792, 
which it closely resembles — begins on June 2d, with the ex- 
pulsion from the Convention of the moderate element, rep- 
resented by the Gironde. 



A strong ex- 
ecutive: the 
Committee of 
Public Safety. 



The Reign of Terror (June 2, 1793, to July 27, 1794). 

The Short Reign of Terror of the summer of 1792 was 
marked by two conspicuous features: first, an energetic de- 
fence of French soil, and, secondly, a bloody repression of 
the monarchical opposition. The Long Reign of Terror 
reproduces these elements developed into a system. What 
is more likely to secure an energetic defence than a strong 
executive? The Mountain, therefore, created a committee, 
finally, of twelve members, called the Committee of Public 
Safety, which it endowed with almost unlimited powers. 
The Committee of Public Safety was established before the 
Girondists fell, but the fact that it did not acquire its sov- 



The French Revolution 373 v 

ereign influence until the summer of 1793 proves how in- 
timately it was associated with the Mountain scheme of 
government. 

Of the famous Committee of Public Safety the most con- Robespierre 
spicuous figure was Robespierre, for which reason the whole an amo ' 
period of the Terror is sometimes identified with his name. 
But Robespierre, if most in view, was by no means the most 
active of the members of the committee. He was indeed 
the hero of the populace and the Jacobins, and swayed the 
Assembly by his oratory, but the men who provided for the 
defence of France were Carnot, Prieur, and Lindet. Dur- 
ing the prolonged internal convulsions they kept as far as 
possible aloof from politics, and quietly and unostentatiously 
attended to business. They organized the general levy, 
equipped the armies, appointed the generals, and mapped 
out the campaigns. If France was able to confront the 
forces of the coalition by armies which soon exceeded the 
enemy in numbers and are sometimes set, though with evi- 
dent exaggeration, at 1,000,000 men, this great achievement, 
on which hung the salvation of the country, may be written 
down primarily to Carnot and his two helpers. 

The executive having been thus efficiently provided for, Themachin- 
it remained to systematize the repression of the anti-revolu- Terror. e 
tionary elements. The machinery of the Terror, as this 
systematization may be called, presented, on its completion, 
the following features: First, there was the Law of the Sus- 
pects. By this unique measure the authorities were au- 
thorized to imprison anyone soever who was denounced to 
them as "suspect," a term that could be stretched to mean 
almost anything. It was afterward said by a wit that all 
France went about in those days conjugating, I am suspect, 
thou art suspect, he is suspect, etc. In consequence, the 
prisons were crowded from garret to cellar with thousands 
of victims. To empty them was the function of the second 



374 The French Revolution 

element of the terrorist machinery, called the Revolutionary 
Tribunal. This was a special court of justice, created for 
the purpose of trying the suspects with security and de- 
spatch. At first the Revolutionary Tribunal adhered to 
certain legal forms, but gradually it sacrificed every consider- 
ation to the demand for speed. The time came when pris- 
oners were haled before the dread judges in companies, and 
condemned to death with no more ceremony than the read- 
ing of their names. There then remained for the luckless 
victims the third and last step in the process of the Terror: 
they were carted to an open square, called the Square of 
the Revolution, and amid staring and hooting mobs, who 
congregated to the spectacle every day as to a feast, their 
heads fell under the stroke of the guillotine. 

Before the Terror had well begun, one of its prime insti- 
gators, Marat, was overtaken by a merited fate. Marat 
was the mouth-piece of the utterly ragged and lawless ele- 
ment of Paris. He had lately developed a thirst for blood 
that can only be accounted for on the ground of disease. 
Yet this degenerate proudly styled himself "the friend of the 
people." The blow which finally put an end to his wild dec- 
lamations was delivered from an unexpected quarter. Many 
of the Girondists, who owed their overthrow primarily to Ma- 
rat, had succeeded in making their escape to the provinces. 
At Caen, in Normandy, the fugitives aroused the sympa- 
thies of a beautiful and noble-minded girl, Charlotte Cor- 
day. Passionately afflicted by the divisions of her country, 
which she laid at Marat's door, she resolved by & bold 
stroke to free France from the oppressor On July 13, 
1793, she succeeded in forcing an entrance into hi? house, 
and stabbed him in his bath. She knew that the act meant 
her own death, but her exaltation did not desert her for a 
moment, and she passed to the guillotine a few days after 
the deed with the sustained calm of a martyr. 



The French Revolution 375 

The dramatic incidents associated with so many illustri- Death of 
ous victims of the Terror can receive only scant justice here, nette, 6 October, 
In October Marie Antoinette was summoned before the x 793- 
Revolutionary Tribunal. She met with noble dignity the 
flimsy and untenable charges trumped up against her, and 
on receiving her death- verdict mounted the scaffold with the 
courage befitting a daughter of the Caesars. 1 A few days 
after the death of Marie Antoinette, the imprisoned Giron- 
dists, to the number of twenty-one, travelled the same road. 
They were followed by the duke of Orleans and Madame 
Roland, each hostile to the other, but charged alike with 
complicity in the Girondist plots. The duke of Orleans, 
head of the secondary branch of the House of Bourbon, 
richly merited his sentence. He had crowned a life of de- 
bauchery and intrigue by siding against Louis XVI., and 
identifying himself with the Jacobin party, going even to the 
point of dropping his titles and adopting the family name 
of Equality (Egalite). When in 1792 he was elected to the Mr. Equality 
Convention, he unblushingly committed his final act of in- 
famy by voting for the death of the king. His very antipo- 
des was Madame Roland. 2 Her honest but bookish enthu- Madame 
siasm for a regenerated public life naturally drew her to the 
Girondist party. For a time her house had been their meet- 
ing-place, and she herself, with the emotional extravagance 
characteristic of the period, had been worshipped as the 
muse, the Egeria, of the republican philosophers. In spite 
of her political immaturity, her mind had the imprint of 

1 Marie Antoinette left two children, a princess of fifteen years and the 
dauphin, Louis, aged eight. The princess was released in 1795, but before 
that mercy could be extended to the boy, he had died under the inhuman 
treatment of his jailers. The systematic torturing to death of the poor 
dauphin is one of the darkest blots upon the Revolution. The dauphin is 
reckoned by legitimists as Louis XVII. 

2 Madame Roland owed her influence in part to her husband, who was a 
prominent member of the Gironde and a minister during the last months 
of the reign of Louis XVI. and again in the fall of 1792. _ Roland made 
his escape when the Gironde was proscribed, but committed suicide on 
hearing of the death of his wife. 



Roland. 



37^ 



The French Revolution 



Revolt at 
Lyons, Toulon, 
and in the 
Vendee. 



nobility and sustained her in her hour of trial. On mount- 
ing the steps of the guillotine, she paused to contemplate a 
statue of Liberty which had been erected near by. Her last 
words were addressed to the impassive goddess. " Liberty," 
she said, "what crimes are committed in thy name." 

But it would be a mistake to suppose that the Terror was 
limited to Paris, or was directed merely against prominent 
individuals. By means of revolutionary committees and 
other agencies it was carried into the provinces on the 
ground that all France would have to be inspired with the 
same sentiments if the foreign invaders were to be checked. 
The departments, inhabited for the most part by law-abid- 
ing citizens, had from the first shown signs of restlessness 
under the violences of the Terror; and when the Gironde, a 
provincial party, fell victim to the Mountain, identified with 
Paris, the situation straightway became strained and led to 
the raising here and there of the standard of revolt. The 
great city of Lyons refused to recognize further the authority 
of the Convention, and the important naval station, Toulon, 
went a step farther and surrendered to the English. Here 
was matter for thought, but it was as nothing compared with 
the great rising in the west. The peasants of the region 
called La Vendee gathered in armed bands under the lead- 
ership of the priests and nobles, and inflamed by the dese- 
cration of the churches and the execution of the king, refused 
to bow their necks to the men of the Revolution. 

This difficult situation the Convention, or ratner the 
Mountain and the Committee of Public Safety, met wh L h 
unflinching resolution. It sent an army against Lyons, and 
in October, 1793, after a brave resistance, the 'Vt was taken. 
Then the Convention resolved to inflict an unb°ard-of pun- 
ishment; it ordered the destruction of a part ot the city and 
the erection on the ruins of a pillar with the inscription, 
"Lyons waged war with liberty; Lyons is no more." In 



The French Revolution 377 

December, 1793, the French army regained Toulon, chiefly 
through the skill of a young artillery officer, Napoleon Bona- 
parte; and, in the same month, another army scattered the 
insurgents of the Vendee. But discontent continuing to 
smoulder in the west, the Convention was roused to send one 
Carrier, armed with full powers, to stamp out the embers. Carrier at 
The vengeance wreaked by this madman upon the hostile an es * 
priests and peasants make the infamies of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal at Paris look like nursery pastimes. Dissatisfied 
with the slow process of the guillotine, Carrier invented new 
methods of wholesale execution. The most ingenious, the 
noyade (drowning), consisted in loading an old vessel with 
one hundred, two hundred, and even eight hundred victims 
— men, women, and children — floating it down the Loire, 
and then scuttling it in the middle of the river. Thus the 
Terror penetrated to every corner of the land, and held all 
France in subjection. 

But its rule was, by its very nature, exceptional. Sooner Disruption of 
or later there was bound to occur a division among its sup- ^[able" 1 " 
porters, and when division came the revolutionists were sure 
to rage against each other, as they had once raged in com- 
mon against the aristocrats. The supreme statesman of the 
period, Mirabeau, had foreseen that development. In a 
moment of prophetic insight he had declared that the Rev- 
olution, like Saturn, would end by devouring its own off- 
spring. 

The first signs of the disintegration of the party of the End of the 
Terror began to appear in the autumn of 1793. The most March, 1S i794„ 
radical wing, which owed its strength to its hold on the gov % 
ernment of the city of Paris, and which followed the lead of 
one Hebert, had turned its particular animosity against the 
Catholic faith. To replace this ancient cult, despised as 
aristocratic, the Hebertists invented, in the spirit of reckless 
atheism, the so-called religion of Reason, and presently 



378 



The French Revolution 



The fall of 
Danton, April, 
1794. 



Supremacy of 
Robespierre. 



forced its acceptance upon the city of Paris by means of 
a decree which closed all places of Catholic worship. 
Although this extravagant measure was soon withdrawn 
and religious toleration reasserted in principle, Robespierre 
took the earliest opportunity to denounce Hebert and his 
ilk before the Jacobins. Finally, in March, 1794, he re- 
solved to have done with the religious farce, and abruptly 
ordered the leading atheists to the guillotine. 

The overthrow of Hebert was followed by that of Dan- 
ton, a man of a better and nobler stamp, who, falling, 
carried his friends and satellites down with him. A ti- 
tanic nature, with a claim to real statesmanship, he had 
exercised a decisive influence in more than one great crisis; 
France had primarily him to thank for her rescue from the 
Prussians in the summer of 1792, and, again, the estab- 
lishment of the Committee of Public Safety was largely 
his work. But now he was growing weary. The uninter- 
rupted flow of blood disgusted him, and he raised his voice 
in behalf of mercy. Mercy, to Robespierre and his young 
follower, the arch-fanatic Saint Just, was nothing less than 
treason, and in sudden alarm at Danton' s " moderation " 
they hurried him and his friends to the guillotine (April 5, 
1794). Thus Robespierre was rid of his last rival. No 
wonder that it was now whispered abroad that he was 
planning to make himself dictator. 

And between Robespierre and a dictatorship there stood, 
in the spring of 1794, only one thing — his own political 
incapacity. That he had the Jacobins, the municipality of 
Paris, the Convention, and the Committee of Public Safety 
in his hands was proved by their servile obedience to his 
slightest nod. On May 7 th he had the satisfaction of wrest- 
ing from the Convention a decree after his own heart, for 
that body made solemn affirmation to the effect that the 
French people recognized a Supreme Being and the immor- 



The French Revolution 



379 



tality of the soul. It sufficiently characterizes the solemn Proclaims the 



pedantry of Robespierre that he never hi his life took any- 
thing so seriously as this ludicrous declaration, nor had an 
inkling of the absurdity of the festival of June 8, 1794, at 
which he presided as high-priest and proclaimed the gospel 
of the Supreme Being to the heathen. Two days after the 
ceremony he showed in what spirit he interpreted his relig- 
ious leadership. In order to facilitate the condemnations, 
the Revolutionary Tribunal (law of June 10th) was multi- 
plied, and its procedure stripped of the last vestiges of legal 
form. Then only did the executions in Paris begin in a 
really wholesale manner. During the six weeks before the 
adoption of the new religion, the numbers of those guillo- 
tined in Paris amounted to 577; during the first six weeks 
after its adoption, the victims reached the frightful figure of 
1,356. No government office, no service rendered on the 
battle-field secured immunity from arrest and death. At 
last, the Terror invaded the Convention itself. Paralyzed 
by fear that body submitted, for a time, to the desperate 
situation. But when the uncertainty connected with living 
perpetually under a threat of death had become intolerable, 
the opponents of Robespierre banded together in order to 
crush him. It is only fair to say that he took no direct 
part in the slaughter of these last weeks. He had a certain 
fastidiousness distinguishing him favorably from many of 
his associates in the governing clique, such as Billaud, 
Collot, and Fouche, who covered themselves with every 
infamy. With his immense following among the people he 
could doubtless have anticipated his enemies, but instead 
of action he wrapped himself in a mysterious silence. On 
the 9th of Thermidor (July 27th) 1 he and his adherents 

1 The Convention, guided by its hatred of the royalist past, had intro- 
duced a new system of time reckoning. Since the birth of the republic 
was regarded as more important than the birth of Christ, September 21, 
1792, the day when monarchy was formally abolished, was voted the be- 



religion of the 

Supreme 

Being. 



?all of Robes- 
pierre, oth 
Thermidor. 



380 The French Revolution 

were condemned by the Convention and executed the next 
day. 

The Rule of the Thermidorians (July 27, 1794, to October 
26, 1795). 

The reaction The fall of Robespierre put an end to the Terror, not 

vention. because Robespierre was the Terror, but because the sys- 1 

tern had, after a year of wild extravagance, become so 
thoroughly discredited, even among its own supporters^ 
that the Convention saw itself obliged to discontinue the 
methods of tyranny. The Thermidorians, many of whom 
had been the vilest instruments of the Terror and had dipped 
their hands into every kind of crime, bowed, therefore, to the 
force of circumstances. They studiously heaped all the blame 
for the past year on the dead Robespierre, and hypocritically 
assumed the character of life-long lovers of rule and order. 
Slowly the frightened bourgeoisie recovered its courage and 
rallied to the support of the Thermidorian party, and finally 
a succession of concerted blows swept the fragments of the 
Terror from the face of France. The municipality of Paris, 
the citadel of the rioters, was dissolved; the Revolutionary 
Tribunal dispersed; the functions of the Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety restricted; and, to make victory sure, the Jacobin 
Club, the old hearth of disorder, was closed. During the 
next year — the last of its long lease of power — the Conven- 
tion ruled France in full accord with the moderate opinion 
of the majority of the citizens. 



ginning of a new era. The whole Christian calendar was at the same 
time declared to be tainted with aristocracy, and a new calendar devised. 
Its chief feature was the invention of new names for the months, such as: 
Nivose, Snow month; Pluviose, Rain month; Ventose, Wind month, for 
the winter months; Germinal, Budding month; Floreal, Flower month; 
Prairial, Meadow month, for the spring months, etc. 

It is worthy of notice that the Convention, a body of men unhampered 
by tradition, discussed many laudable reforms and carried some of them 
into effect. One change has invited imitation. It supplanted the old and 
complicated system of weights and measures by the metrical system. 



The French Revolution 381 

But if the Terror fell, its overthrow was due not only to TheTexror 
the horror it inspired, but also to the fact that it had accom- defends U y 
plished its end. Its cause, as well as its excuse, was the France - 
danger of France, and whatever else be said, it had really 
succeeded in defending the country against the forces of a 
tremendous coalition. On this defence the reader must 
now bestow a rapid glance. In the campaign of 1793 the 
French had just about held their own, but in 1794 Carnot's 
splendid power of organization, and his gift for picking 
out young talents, enabled the revolutionary army to carry 
the war into the territory of the enemy. Thus the tables were The first revo 
turned and old Europe, instead of invading young France, successes, 
found itself invaded. In the course of 1794 Jourdan's army 
conquered Belgium, and shortly after Pichegru seized Hol- 
land. Belgium, which ever since the Treaty of Utrecht had 
been a dominion of Austria, was annexed to France, but 
Holland was left independent, though reconstituted as a re- 
public and subjected to French influence. At the same time 
the recrudescence of the old animosities between Prussia 
and Austria, this time over the question of Poland, para- 
lyzed the military action of the German allies, and enabled 
the French to occupy the whole left bank of the Rhine. 
Incurable jealousies, coupled with the demoralizing effect 
of the revolutionary victories, undermined the coalition; and 
as the Thermidorians had no special reasons for continuing 
the war, they entered into negotiations with Prussia and Peace with 

o • j • j.i • f iii •,} ,i Prussia and 

bpam, and m the spring of 1795 concluded peace with them Spain, 1795. 
at Basel. By these treaties the position of France was made 
more secure, for England and Austria alone of the great 
powers were now left in the field against her. 

Meanwhile, the Convention had taken up the long-neg- TheConven- 
lected task for which it had been summoned, and in the a constitution. 
course of the year 1795 completed a new constitution for 
republican France. This constitution was ready to be 



382 



The French Revolution 



Bonaparte 
defends the 
Convention. 



The Constitu- 
tion of the 
Year III. 



promulgated when, in October, the Convention had to meet 
one more assault upon its authority. Animated by various 
motives, many factions, among them also the royalists, com- 
bined and swept down upon the Convention to cow it by 
violence, as they had cowed it so often. But the Con- 
vention had been for some time filled with a more valiant 
spirit. It resolved to defend itself, and intrusted one of its 
members, Barras, with the task; but Barras, who was no 
soldier, conferred the command of the troops upon a young 
officer and acquaintance of his, Napoleon Bonaparte. 
Bonaparte had already creditably distinguished himself at 
Toulon, and wanted nothing better than this opportunity. 
When the rioters marched against the Convention on Octo- 
ber 5th he received them with such a volley of grape-shot that 
they fled precipitately, leaving hundreds of their comrades 
dead upon the pavement. It was a new way of treating 
Parisian lawlessness, and it had its effect. Henceforth, in 
the face of such drastic measures the people lost taste for the 
dictation which for six years they had exercised by means 
of spontaneous insurrections. Bonaparte and his volley of 
grape-shot meant the return of authority, and proclaimed 
with brazen tongue that the chapter of revolutionary vio- 
lences had come to an end. 

The Convention could now perform its remaining busi- 
ness without hindrance. On October 26, 1795, its stormy, 
cowardly, and yet, in some respects, highly creditable career 
came to an end, and the new constitution went immedi- 
ately into effect. It is called the Constitution of the Year 
III., from the year of the republican calendar in which it 
was completed. Its main provisions mark a return from the 
loose, liberal notions of the constitution of 1791 to a more 
compact executive. Nevertheless, the tyranny of the ancien 
regime was still too near for the objections against a too- 
powerful executive to have vanished utterly. Therefore, a 



The French Revolution 383 

compromise was found in a multiple executive of five mem- 
bers, called the Directory. The legislative functions were 
intrusted to two houses — a further departure from the con- 
stitution of 1 791, the single legislative house of which had 
proved a failure — called respectively, the Council of Five 
Hundred and the Council of the Ancients. 

The Directory (1795-99). 

The Directory wished to signalize its accession to power The Directory 
by terminating the war with a brilliant victory over the re- centratedat- 
maining enemies of France, England and Austria. But an tadsupon 
attack upon England was, because of the insufficiency of 
French naval power, out of the question. Austria was more 
vulnerable, and Austria the Directory now resolved to strike 
with the combined armies of France. In accordance with 
this purpose, "the organizer of victory," Carnot, who was 
one of the Directors, worked out a plan by which the Aus- 
trians were to be attacked simultaneously in Germany and 
Italy. Two splendid armies under Jourdan and Moreau 
were assigned to the German task, which was regarded as 
by far the more important, while the Italian campaign, un- 
dertaken as a mere diversion, was intrusted to a shabbily 
equipped army of 30,000 men, which, through the influence 
of the Director Barras and in reward for services rendered, 
was put under the command of the defender of the Conven- 
tion, General Bonaparte. But by the mere force of his 
genius, Bonaparte upset completely the calculations of the 
Directory, and gave his end of the campaign such impor- 
tance that he, and not Jourdan or Moreau, decided the war. 

Bonaparte's task was to beat, with his army, an army of Bonaparte in 
Piedmontese and Austrians twice as large. Because of the 
superiority of the combined forces of the enemy, he natu- 
rally resolved to meet the Piedmontese and Austrians sep- 



3§4 



The French Revolution 



The Peace of 
Campo For- 
mic-, 1797. 



Bonaparte 
creates two 
dependent 
republics in 
Italy. 



arately. Everything in this plan depended on rapidity, and 
it was now to appear that no beast of prey could excel the 
stealthy approach and swift leap of this young general. Be- 
fore the snows had melted from the mountains, he arrived 
unexpectedly before the gates of Turin, and wrested a peace 
from the king of Sardinia-Piedmont, by the terms of which 
this old enemy of France had to surrender Savoy and Nice 
(May, 1796). Then Bonaparte turned against the Aus- 
trians. Before May was over he had driven them out of 
Lombardy. The Pope and the small princes, in alarm, hast- 
ened to buy peace of France by the cession of territories and 
of works of art, while the Austrians tried again and again 
to recover their lost position. But at^Axcola (November, 
1796) and Rivoli (January, 1797), Bonaparte, by his aston- 
ishing alertness, beat signally the forces sent against him. 
Then he invaded Austria to dictate terms under the walls of 
Vienna. 

This sudden move of Bonaparte's determined the Em- 
peror Francis II. to sue for peace. Although his brother, 
the Archduke Charles, had, at the head of the Austrian forces 
in Germany, beaten Jourdan and Moreau in the campaign 
of 1796, the emperor was not prepared to stand a siege in 
his capital. His offers were met half-way by Bonaparte, 
and out of the negotiations which ensued there grew the 
Peace of Campo Formio (October, 1797). By this peace 
Austria ceded her Belgian provinces to France, recognized 
a sphere of French influence in Italy, and accepted for her- 
self the principle of the Rhine boundary, the details to be 
arranged later with the Empire. In return for these con- 
cessions she received the republic of Venice, which Napoleon 
had just seized. Bonaparte's victories had made French 
influence dominant in Italy and led to an important political 
rearrangement. Out of his conquests in northern Italy he 
established two new states, the Cisalpine republic, identical, 



The French Revolution 385 

in the main, with the former Austrian province of Lom- 
bardy, and the Ligurian republic, evolved from the former 
city-state of Genoa! Both7~these governments were mod- 
elled upon the republic of France, and though, like Hol- 
land, nominally independent, became the timid clients of the 
Directory. 

When Bonaparte returned to France he was hailed as the Bonaparte 
national hero, who out of the bramble war had plucked the tn g hour° 
jewel peace. And what a peace he brought, a peace which 
French statesmen had dreamed of but never achieved, and 
which at last carried France on the east to her natural boun- 
dary, the Rhine! A man who had in a single campaign so 
distinguished himself and his country naturally stood, from 
now on, at the centre of affairs. 

That Napoleon Bonaparte should obtain a position of pre- Youth of 
eminence in France before he had reached the age of thirty, Bonaparte, 
would never have been prophesied by the friends of his youth. 
He was born at Ajaccio, on the island of Corsica, in 1769, 
of a poor but noble family. The inhabitants of Corsica, 
Italians by race, had long been ruled by Genoa, when, 
in the year 1768, France obtained the cession of the 
island. At the time of Napoleon's birth, therefore, the 
French were occupied in establishing their rule over a 
people who heroically but uselessly resisted them. In the 
midst of the patriotic excitement caused by his country's 
overthrow, the young Corsican grew up. The first notable 
turn in his fortunes occurred when, at the age of ten, he was 
sent to France to be reared in a military school. In due 
course of time he became a lieutenant of artillery, and it was 
while he was holding this commission, among a people whom 
he still detested as the oppressors of his country, that the 
French Revolution broke out, and opened a free field for all 
who were possessed of ambition and talent. The irresistible 
current of events caught up and bore the young Napoleon 



386 



The French Revolution 



Foreign suc- 
cess, domestic 
failure. 



France at- 
tacks England 
in Egypt. 



along until he forgot his narrow Corsican patriotism, and 
merged his person and his fortunes with the destinies of 
France. We noted his first great feat at Toulon. The four 
short years which lay between Toulon and Campo Formio 
had carried him by rapid stages to the uppermost round of 
the ladder of success. Jf 

After two years of existence the Directory had good rea- 
son to congratulate itself. Belgium, Holland, Italy, and the 
Rhine boundary, sounded a catalogue of brilliant achieve- 
ments, and assured France an unrivalled position upon the 
Continent. Unfortunately, the domestic situation continued 
to give trouble, and the country still bled from the wounds 
inflicted by the fierce feuds of the past years. The Church 
question was no nearer solution, the royalists were gaining 
strength, and the finances were in hopeless confusion. The 
value of the paper money (assignats), on account of reckless 
multiplication, could not be kept up, and when it had shrunk 
to almost nothing, the Directory wiped the whole issue out 
of existence by the stroke of a pen. That act meant bank- 
ruptcy and the paralysis of business. Doubtless the wisest 
measure would have been to make peace and give France a 
chance to breathe. But the Directory had a different idea and 
chose to withdraw attention from domestic woes by throwing 
itself upon the last remaining foreign enemy, England. 

For the year 1798 the government planned a great action 
in order to bring England to terms. As the lack of a fleet 
put a direct attack upon the island-kingdom out of the 
question, it was resolved to strike at England indirectly by 
threatening its colonies. With due secrecy an expedition 
was prepared at Toulon, and Bonaparte given the command. 
Nelson, the English admiral, was, of course, on the outlook, 
but Bonaparte succeeded in evading his vigilance, and in 
starting unmolested for Egypt (May, 1798). Egypt was a 
province of Turkey and the key to the east. By estab- 



The French Revolution 387 

lishing himself on the Nile, Bonaparte calculated that he 
could sever the connection of England with India and the 
Orient. Nelson gave chase as soon as he got wind of the 
movements of the French, and although he arrived too late 
to hinder them from landing near Alexandria, he just as 
effectually ruined their expedition when on August 1st he 
attacked and destroyed their fleet at Abukir Bay. Bonaparte 
might now go on conquering Egypt and all Africa — he was 
shut off from Europe and as good as imprisoned with his 
whole army. 

Thus the Egyptian campaign was lost before it had fairly Bonaparte 
begun. Bonaparte could blind his soldiers to the fact but n gyp " 
he hardly blinded himself. Of course he did what he could 
to retrieve the disaster to his fleet. By his victory over the 
Egyptian soldiery, the Mamelukes, in the battle of the Pyra- 
mids (1798), he made himself master of the basin of the Nile, 
and in the next year marched to Syria. The seaport of Acre, 
which he besieged in order to establish communication with 
France, repulsed his attack, while the plague decimated his 
brave troops. Sick at heart Bonaparte returned to Egypt, 
and despairing of a change in his fortunes, suddenly resolved 
to desert his army. Contriving to run the English blockade, 
he landed on October 9, 1799, with a few friends, on the 
southern coast of France. Though the army he had de- 
serted was irretrievably lost, 1 that fact was forgotten amid 
the rejoicings over the return of the national hero. 

The enthusiastic welcome of France, which turned Bona- The Seconc 
parte's journey to Paris into a triumphal procession, was due I79 s ( I79 ' , 
partially to the new dangers to which the country had been 
exposed during his absence. Bonaparte was hardly known 
to have been shut up in Egypt, when Europe, hopeful of 
shaking off the French ascendancy, formed a new coalition 
against the hated republic. Austria and Russia, supported 

1 The army surrendered to the English in 1801. 



388 



The French Revolution 



The French 
public is 
weary of 
revolution. 



Bonaparte 
overthrows the 
Directory, 
November, 
1799. 



by English money, renewed the war, and the year 1799 was 
marked by a succession of victories which swept the French 
out of Italy and Germany. At the time when Bonaparte 
made his appearance in Europe, an invasion of France had 
narrowly been averted by the heroism of General Massena, 

No wonder that the hopes of the nation gathered around 
the dashing military leader. What other French general 
had exhibited such genius as Bonaparte, had won such 
glory for himself and France? Moreover, after the cease- 
less agitations of ten years people were tired to death of 
revolution, the party spirit, and the continued uncertainty 
of all social relations. The Directory had made matters 
worse by going into national bankruptcy. Discontent was 
so general that optimistic royalists predicted the early return 
of the legitimate king. In short, France was in hopeless 
confusion, and everybody turned spontaneously to Bona- 
parte as toward a saviour. 

The general was hardly apprised of this state of public 
opinion, when he resolved to act. With the aid of some 
conspirators in power and urged by public opinion, he over- 
threw the government. The only resistance was made by 
the Chamber of Five Hundred, which he overawed by mili- 
tary force. The ease with which the coup d'etat of Novem- 
ij/^ber 9, 1799 (18th Brumaire), was executed proves that the 
Constitution of the Year III. was dead in spirit before Bona- 
parte destroyed it in fact. 



A new con- 
stitution. 



The Consulate (1799-1804). 

Bonaparte was now free to set up a new constitution, in 
which an important place should be assured to himself. 
Rightly he divined that what France needed and desired 
was a strong executive, for ten years of anarchic liberty had 
prepared the people for the restoration pf order. The result 



The French Revolution 389 

of Bonaparte's deliberations with his friends was the Con- 
sular Constitution, called the Constitution of the Year VIII., 
by which the government was practically concentrated in the 
hands of one official, called the First Consul. Of course, to 
hoodwink democratic enthusiasts the appearances of popular 
government were preserved. The legislative functions were 
reserved to two bodies, the Tribunate and the Legislative 
Body, but as the former discussed bills without voting upon 
them, and the latter merely voted upon them without dis- 
cussing them, their power was so divided that they necessa- 
rily lost all influence. Without another coup d'etat, by means 
of a simple change of title, the Consul Bonaparte could, 
when he saw fit, evolve himself into the Emperor Napoleon, 
who would govern France as its absolute master. 

But for the present there was more urgent business on Bonaparte 
hand. As France was at war with the Second Coalition, i| ^ 
there was work to be done in the field. The opportune 
withdrawal of Russia before the beginning of the campaign, 
again limited the enemies of France to England and Aus- 
tria. The situation was therefore analogous to that of 
1796, and the First Consul resolved to meet it by an analo- 
gous plan. Neglecting England as inaccessible, and con- 
centrating his attention upon Austria, he sent Moreau 
against her into Germany, while he himself went again to 
meet her in Italy. By a strenuous and picturesque march 
*i the early spring over the great St. Bernard Pass, a feat 
which rivalled the performance of the great Hannibal, he 
was enabled to strike unexpectedly across the Austrian line 
of retreat and force the enemy to make a stand. In the 
hattle-cf-Marengo, which followed (June 14, 1800), he 
crushed the Austrians, and recovered all Italy at a stroke. 
Again Francis II. had to admit the invincibility of French 

arms. In the Peace of Luneville (1801) he reconfirmed all J >eace °* 

, .,, . Lunevilles 

the cessions made at Campo Formio, and as the Empire 1801. 



39o 



The Trench Revolution 



Peace with 

England, 

1802. 



France at 
peace with 
the world. 



Bonaparte 
undertakes the 
reconstruction 
of France. 



became a party to the treaty, there was now no possible 
defect in the cession of the left bank of the Rhine. It is 
this feature of the Rhine boundary which gives the Peace of 
Luneville its importance. As the treaty, furthermore, 
redelivered Italy into Bonaparte's hands, he now re- 
established the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics in their 
old dependence upon France. 

Again, as in 1798, the only European state which held out 
against France was England. How reduce the great sea- 
power to peace? Bonaparte's naval resources were as in- 
adequate now as ever, and as for striking at the colonies, the 
recollection of Egypt quickly disposed of the idea. Sated for 
the time with success and glory, he opened negotiations 
with the cabinet at London, and in March, 1802, concluded 
with England, substantially on the basis of mutual restitu- 
tions, the peace of Amiens. 

After ten years of fighting, France was now at peace with 
the world. The moment was auspicious, but it remained to 
be seen whether she could take up the labors of peace, and 
while healing her many wounds, remove the apprehension 
with which defeated Europe regarded her. 

Certainly the First Consul showed no want of vigor in 
attacking the domestic situation, though the picture which 
unrolled itself before his eyes was frightful. After the 
wholesale destruction and careless experimentation of the 
last decade, France needed, above all, a season of construc- 
tive statesmanship. Not that the Revolution had not scat- 
tered seeds in plenty, but the harvest had not been awaited 
with patience. The work before the First Consul during the 
interval of peace which followed the treaties of LuneVille 
and Amiens was, therefore, nothing less than the recon- 
struction of the whole social order. He shouldered his 
responsibilities with his usual ardor. In a public proclama- 
tion he announced that the disturbances were now over 



The French Revolution 391 

and that he considered it his special task to "close" the 
Revolution and to "consolidate" its results. 

One of his first cares was to bring back material prosperity. Return of 
The national bankruptcy of the Directory now proved a help, P ros P ent 3 r 
for by wiping out the worthless paper money, it enabled 
the new ruler to make a fresh start. With the currency re- 
stored, confidence again began to prevail in business circles, 
and industry and commerce quickly recovered from their 
long depression. Surely the country had reason to boast of 
its "man of destiny." Sustained by an unexampled popu- 
larity, the First Consul now undertook to create a number 
of fundamental institutions, which, in spite of all the revo- 
lutions of the nineteenth century, exist, in the main, to this 
day, and are his best title to fame. Let us give these insti- 
tutions a brief consideration. 

The internal administration of France had, during the Anewcen- 
Revolution, fallen into complete anarchy. The constitu- ministration, 
tion of 1 791 had divided France into eighty-three depart- 
ments, and had supplanted the old centralized administra- 
tion of royal appointees by a system of local self-government. 
Practically every office was made elective, requiring a polit- 
ical activity of which the voters, unaccustomed to the exercise 
of such duties, became weary. They refused to attend the 
polls and permitted the power to drift into the hands of a 
few professional politicians. Even under the Terror the 
system had been given up, and now with Bonaparte's 
advent a deliberate return was made to the traditional policy 
of centralized control. Over every department was put a 
prefect, appointed by the First Consul and reporting back 
to him. By this means the whole country was kept in the 
hands of the chief executive. With his wonderful sense of 
precision, Bonaparte so perfected his system that no mon- 
arch by Divine Right has ever in an equal degree made his 
will felt through the length and breadth of his dominion. 



392 



The French Revolution 



Democracy, the will-o'-the-wisp pursued through blood and 
fire for ten agitated years, was sacrificed, but the weary 
people were content for the present with the order and 
security assured by the new administration. 

Religion lay in a similarly hopeless tangle, owing to the 
persistent attacks of the Revolution upon the Catholic 
Church. A beginning had been made in 1789 by the con- 
fiscation of its property, followed in 1790 by the famous 
Constitution of the Clergy, by which the priests and bishops 
were reduced to the level of paid civil servants of the state. 
Against this measure the Church revolted, creating a relig- 
ious chaos which led to the persecution and wholesale 
slaughter of orthodox priests and was diversified by such 
extravagant episodes as the worship of Reason and Robes- 
pierre's cult of the Supreme Being. But in spite of banish- 
ment and guillotine, Catholicism at the dawning of the new 
century was still alive. Bonaparte himself possessed no 
positive religious views, but he had a splendid sense of 
reality and divined the superior vigor of the persecuted faith. 
He had also a clear appreciation of the support which the 
reconstituted Church could furnish his reorganized state,, 
and presently entered into negotiations with Rome. The 
result was a treaty of peace, called the Concordat (1801): 
the Church resigned its claim to its confiscated estates, and 
the state undertook the maintenance, on a liberal basis, of 
priests and bishops; these latter were to be nominated by 
the state and confirmed by the Pope. Thus, if the Church 
was reestablished, it was henceforth reduced to a close de- 
pendence on the state. 

With administration and religion cared for, Bonaparte 
gave his attention to the department of justice. The legal 
confusion reigning in France before the Revolution is in- 
describable, for everything had been left to chance, and rad- 
ically different systems of law were often in force in the vari- 



The French Revolution 393 

ous sections of the country, or even in the same province. 
The Revolution had made an attempt to straighten out the 
confusion, but had not got far when Bonaparte vcame to 
power. With his usual energy he soon had a commission 
of experts at work upon the creation of a uniform system, 
and in 1804 he was enabled to publish the result of their 
labors in the Civil Code, called afterward the Code Napo- 
leon. No labor of similar scope had been undertaken since 
the days of Justinian. The Roman law was made the basis 
of the Napoleonic code, with such modifications as the prog- 
ress of the centuries and the principles of the French Rev- 
olution made inevitable. 

Bonaparte also planned a general system of state educa- Bonaparte 
tion, consisting of the primary, secondary, and college stages, of the ways° g 
but he did not get far with his project, and the regulation of 
school affairs, above all, the creation of a system of popular 
education, had to wait for more auspicious times. From 
what has been said, however, some idea can be gained of his 
constructive and methodizing genius. It is a noteworthy 
circumstance that his labors of peace have survived l all sub- 
sequent revolutions, while the conquests of his sword have 
been "swept in fragments to oblivion." Bonaparte as First 
Consul stood at the parting of the ways. He might con- 
tinue the labors of peace so gloriously inaugurated, or he 
might return to the policy of aggressive war lately closed with 
the treaties of Luneville and Amiens. We must remember 
that he was primarily a soldier, animated with restless energy 
and spurred on by boundless ambition, and that civil labors 
could not long engage an imagination which embraced the 
ends of the earth. Slowly and instinctively this man, the 
type of the born military conqueror, turned his eyes from 
France to let them rest upon Europe and the neighboring 

1 The Concordat was lately (1905) terminated by action of the state 
with results which cannot yet be estimated. 



394 



The French Revolution 



Napoleon, 
emperor of the 
French. 



continents, and girded himself for a role like that of Caesar 
and Alexander. Therewith the Revolution entered upon its 
last or Napoleonic stage, in which France is only the tool 
for the realization of the ambition of the most extraordinary 
genius of modern times. He took the initial step upon this 
path when he modified the consular constitution in his own 
interest. In 1802 he had himself appointed consul for life, 
and in May, 1804, dropped the transparent pretence of re- 
publicanism by the assumption of the title emperor of the 
French. The final step in this transformation scene oc- 
curred in December of the same year, when in the presence 
of the Pope, and with all the formality and pomp of the 
ancient regime, he crowned himself and his wife Josephine 
before the high altar of the Cathedral Church of Paris. 



Napoleon's 
action in 
Holland and 
Italy. 



Renewal of the 
war with 
England. 



The Empire (1804-15). 

Napoleon's first imperial measure was the appropriation 
of the subject-republics by which France was surrounded. 
At his nod the Batavian republic bloomed forth as the king- 
dom of Holland, and thankfully accepted Louis Bonaparte, 
Napoleon's brother, as king. In like manner the Cisalpine 
republic became the kingdom of Italy and offered the crown 
to its powerful protector. In May, 1805, Napoleon crossed 
the Alps, and had himself crowned king at Milan. The 
Ligurian republic now had no further raison d'itre, and like 
Piedmont, some years before, was quietly incorporated with 
France. 

Even before these signal acts of aggression the confidence 
with which the European governments had first greeted Na- 
poleon had vanished. Slowly they began to divine in him 
the insatiable conqueror, who was only awaiting an oppor- 
tunity to swallow them all. As early as 1803 continued dis- 
putes over the Peace of Amiens had led to a renewal of the 



The French Revolution 395 

war with England. Napoleon now prepared a great naval 
armament at Boulogne, and for a year, at least, England 
was agitated by the prospect of a descent upon her coasts; 
but the lack of an adequate fleet made Napoleon's project 
chimerical from the first, and in the summer of 1805 he un- 
reservedly gave it up. 

He gave it up because England had succeeded in playing The Third 
upon the fears of Austria and Russia until they formed a England, Aus- 
new coalition to curb the growing power of the emperor. tna ' Russia - 
No sooner had Napoleon got wind of the state of affairs 
than he abandoned his quixotic English plans, and threw 
himself upon the practical task of defeating his continental 
enemies. His military genius presently celebrated a new 
triumph, for at Ulm he took the whole Austrian advance 
guard captive, and^^on December 2, 1805, he followed up Austerlitz, 
this advantage by administering a crushing defeat to the I s os . 
combined Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz in Moravia. 
With his capital, Vienna, lost, and his states occupied, the 
Austrian emperor was reduced to bow down before the in- 
vincible Corsican and sign the Peace of Pressburg (Decem- 
ber 26, 1805), in which he gave up Venice to be incorporated 
with the kingdom of Italy, and the Tyrol to be incorporated 
with Bavaria. 

These provisions introduce us to a very characteristic Napoleon's 
feature of Napoleon's policy of conquest. He did not plan, po e ik^. n 
at least for the present, to incorporate the conquered prov- 
inces of Europe with France, but rather, from France as a 
centre, to rule over a host of subject-kings. Especially in 
regard to Germany, his policy was to create a check for the 
great powers, Austria and Prussia, by fattening the smaller 
states at their expense. Therefore, Wurtemberg as well as 
Bavaria had received new territory and been raised to the 
rank of a kingdom. He now went a step farther and pro- 
posed to gather all the smaller German states into a new 



396 



The French Revolution 



union under his presidency. As they had neither the power 
nor the moral stamina to resist, the world was presently in- 
formed of the organization of a new German confederacy, 
composed of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, and in its final 
form of all the states of Germany except Austria and Prussia. 
Qf this union, called the Confederation of the Rhine, 
Napoleon became sovereign under the name of Protector. 
A' glance at the map will show how this triumph drove a 
wedge into central Europe. 

Naturally, the creation of a rival German organization 
coupled with the defection of its component elements from 
the Holy Roman Empire gave that venerable institution its 
death-blow. It had been an unconscionable time a-dying, 
and now Napoleon, the product of a revolution which made 
sport of tradition, bade it begone. Emperor Francis spoke 
a last service over its remains when he resigned his now 
empty title, and adopted in its place the designation em- 
peror of Austria (1806). Certainly no German, however 
much he might regret the manner of its taking off, had 
any cause to shed a tear at the passing away of this de- 
crepit government. The stroke which freed Germany 
from the incubus of centuries cleared the way for a happier 
future. 

But that future was as yet hidden behind the clouds of the 
gathering storm which threatened to destroy every vestige 
of German independence. For with Austria humbled and 
the small states reduced to subservience in the Confedera- 
tion of the Rhine, Napoleon now turned his attention to 
Prussia. Ever since 1795 (Treaty of Basel) Prussia had 
maintained a friendly neutrality, and all the persuasion and 
threats of the rest of Europe had not induced her to renew 
the war against her western neighbor. Even after Napoleon 
became emperor, the government of Berlin pursued an ami- 
cable course, weakly hoping for all kinds of advantages 



The French Revolution 397 

from a close association with France. But as soon as 
Napoleon had disposed of Austria, he showed his true hand 
and inaugurated toward Prussia a policy of provocations, 
which the obsequious government of the peevish king, 
Frederick William III. (1 797-1840), refused for a long time 
to resent. By the autumn of 1806, however, Napoleon's acts 
had grown so flagrant that Prussia, to save the poor rem- 
nant of her self-respect, had to declare war. 

Again Napoleon had an opportunity to show that the old Napoleon as 
military art of Europe could not maintain itself against his s egls ' 
methods. As we examine these now, they surprise us by 
their mathematical simplicity. To get ready earlier than 
the enemy, to march more rapidly than he, and, finally, to 
strike him at the weakest spot with concentrated energy — ■ 
these were the principles of Napoleon's military science, com- 
bined with personal qualities of hot daring and cool fore- 
sight which have perhaps never been equalled. 

The campaign of 1806 brought Napoleon's genius into The Prussian 
view more clearly than any that had preceded it. But if of i8^f n 
the emperor won, his soldiers shared the honors with him. 
For the Prussian troops, drilled like machines but moved by 
no enthusiasm, were as little the equals of the great national 
French armies, animated by the ideas of country and glory, 
as the Prussian commander, the ancient duke of Brunswick, 
who had. been trained in the antiquated school of Frederick 
the Great, was a match for the fiery young emperor. On 
October 14, 1806, old and new Europe clashed once more, 
and at the battles of Jena_and_Auerstadt, fought on that 
day, the military monarchy of the great Frederick was over- 
whelmed. With a bare handful of troops Frederick Will- 
iam fled toward his province of East Prussia, in order to 
put himself under the protection of Russia, and before the 
month of October had passed, Napoleon entered Berlin in 
triumph. 



398 



The French Revolution 



ae campaign 
iigainst Russia, 
1807. 



i he Treaty 
of Tilsit. 



The humilia- 
tion of Prussia. 



Alliance of 
Napoleon and 
Alexander 



All central Europe now lay in Napoleon's hand. Another 
man would have preferred to rest before continuing his 
march of triumph, but Napoleon felt unsatisfied as long as 
there was any one who dared brave his legions. In order to 
overthrow the presumptuous ally of Prussia, the Czar Alex- 
ander, Napoleon now set out from Berlin, and in June, 
1807, won a great victory over the Russians at Friedland. 
Then he magnanimously offered peace to Alexander, and 
to the surprise of the world the enemy of yesterday became 
the bosom friend of to-day. 

The Czar Alexander was a young man with a vivid im- 
agination, and when he now met the great Corsican, under 
romantic circumstances, on a raft moored in the river Nie- 
men, he fell completely under the spell of his personality. 
The consequence of the repeated deliberations of the two 
emperors, of which the disgraced king of Prussia was for the 
most part a silent witness, was the Peace of Tilsit (July, 
1807). By this peace Russia was treated with kindness, 
but Prussia was thoroughly humiliated, and condemned to 
the sacrifice of half her territory. The Prussian provinces 
between the Elbe and Rhine were made the nucleus of a new 
kingdom of Westphalia for Napoleon's youngest brother 
Jerome, and the Prussian spoils of the later Polish Partitions 
were constituted as the grand-duchy of Warsaw, and given 
to the elector of Saxony. Prussia became a secondary state, 
with nothing more to boast of than that she still lived. 

The treaty of peace was accompanied by an arrangement 
between Napoleon and Alexander by the terms of which they 
became close allies. This dramatic turn was the result of 
the fascination which the western conqueror exercised upon 
the pliable and romantic Czar, who now formally promised 
to join Napoleon in his war against England, in case that 
power would not straightway make peace. In return the 
French sovereign held out the prospect of aiding Russia in 



The French Revolution 399 

her projects upon Turkey, and diverted his new friend with 
an imaginative picture of a Europe divided, as in Roman 
times, between an emperor of the west and another of the 
east. 

The Peace of Tilsit carried Napoleon to the zenith of his Napoleon at 
career, for with Russia as his ally, the rest of the Continent his power. 
was subject to his will and obliged to wear his yoke. Let 
us for a moment with the map in hand review his position. 
He held France and the kingdom of Italy, ruling them di- 
rectly and absolutely, and this firm nucleus he had sur- 
rounded with a host of dependencies, where subject-sover- 
eigns enjoyed vacant and nominal honors. In Germany he 
had created the Confederation of the Rhine; he controlled 
the Swiss Republic under the title of Mediator; and he had 
put his brothers and relatives as instruments of his will in 
various territories, Louis becoming king of Holland, Joseph 
king of Naples, his favorite, Jerome, king of Westphalia, 
and his brother-in-law, the brilliant cavalry leader Murat, 
grand-duke of Berg. These last two states, Westphalia 
and Berg, were artificial creations out of the German spoils, 
and were incorporated with the Confederation cf the Rhine. 
By a succession of unparalleled strokes, delivered between 
1805 and 1807, he had humbled Austria, Prussia, and Rus- 
sia, had silenced all opposition on the Continent, and could 
now return to the starting-point of his imperial wars, the 
struggle with England. 

This struggle is one of the most fascinating and momen- The war with 
tous chapters in Napoleon's career. Adjourned at the Peace En s land - 
of Amiens (1802), it had broken out again the next year, and 
led to the armament of Boulogne and the plan to invade the 
island. The project was hair-brained while England with a 
superior fleet controlled the Channel, and its chances were 
entirely blasted when in October, 1805, Nelson, the British 
naval hero, destroyed the allied French and Spanish fleets 



400 



The French Revolution 



The Continen- 
tal System. 



The Continen- 
tal System 
prepares Na- 
poleon's over- 
throw. 



off Trafalgar. Since then fighting on the seas had practi- 
cally ceased; Napoleon might march with his invincible 
hosts from capital to capital, but his control stopped with 
the shore. Undismayed, he resolved now to strike at Eng- 
land indirectly by ruining her commerce and sapping her 
wealth. This commercial war has received the name of the 
Continental System, and the opening gun was fired in the 
Decrees issued from Berlin in November, 1806, by which 
Napoleon ordered the seizure of all British goods in his own 
or allied territory, and excluded from the ports of France 
and her allies all ships hailing from Great Britain. The 
necessary supplies of colonial produce, such as sugar and 
coffee, Napoleon hoped to have furnished by neutral vessels; 
but the British Government shattered this illusion by an- 
swering his challenge with the so-called Orders in Council, 
forbidding neutral ships, under penalty of seizure, to trade 
between ports from which Britain was excluded. This blow 
called for another. Napoleon now determined on nothing 
less than to seal the Continent hermetically to English trade 
by obliging every state, great and small, to accept the Con- 
tinental System. Prussia and Austria had already yielded, 
and one of the articles of the alliance of Tilsit provided not 
only that Russia should follow in their footsteps, but also 
that Alexander should join Napoleon in forcing the exclu- 
sion of British goods upon the few small states which had 
thus far resisted, namely, Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal. 
The adoption of the Continental System became the turn- 
ing-point of Napoleon's career and the beginning of his 
downfall, for not only did it involve him in new conquests, 
but by spreading misery far and wide, through the ruin of 
commerce and industry, created a discontent which lost him 
his popularity, and finally rose in ever-renewed waves of 
hatred to a sea of universal revolt. It is well to remember 
in this connection that Napoleon's astonishing successes 



The French Revolution 401 

were won over old-fashioned, absolute monarchies, only re- 
motely in touch with their own peoples. In Italy and Ger- 
many the masses to a considerable extent sympathized with 
Napoleon, for he represented the doctrines of the French 
Revolution, and his armies brought in their train the over- 
throw of such feudal iniquities as serfdom and the reign of 
privilege. But this precious support the emperor sacri- 
ficed when he paralyzed the economic life of Europe and 
carried exasperation into every city and village. Greeted at 
first as a liberator, he was gradually cursed as a scourge, 
and reaped the harvest of his policy in a series of national 
revolts which swept himself, his throne, and his family off 
the face of Europe. It is of course questionable whether 
Napoleon's cosmopolitan empire, composed of many proud 
and spirited nationalities, could have been fashioned even 
by his genius into a durable form; in any case it is certain 
that by the Continental System he took measures to secure 
his own failure. 

Acting upon the arrangements of Tilsit, Napoleon first Invasion of 
turned upon little Portugal with the command that she seize -^^^ ' 
all British goods and close her ports to British commerce. 
On her refusal he occupied her territory with an army, and 
drove her royal family across the seas to Brazil. 

Here was brutality and violence, but it dwindled to inno- The weak 
cence compared with what happened immediately after in Epain during 
Spain, for there the emperor struck a friend and ally. The |£) e n Revolu " 
history of Spain during the French Revolution is a miserable 
tale, largely because of the despicable character of the king, 
Charles IV., and the corruption of the court. Having made 
war upon the Revolution in its first stage, the king had 
as early as 1795 signed a peace, which had shortly after 
ripened into an alliance. For the sake of his good friend 
Napoleon, Charles IV. had joined his fleet to that of 
France, and also for the sake of that friend he had sacri- 



402 



The French Revolution 



The intrigue 
of Bayonne, 
1808. 



The insur- 
rection of 
Spain. 



need it at Trafalgar. As a return for these good offices, 
Napoleon now deliberately planned to seize his kingdom. 
Taking advantage of a quarrel between Charles and his son 
Ferdinand — two clowns as disgusting as any that have ever 
masqueraded in a royal mantle — he invited the pair to Bay- 
onne^ just across the border, in order to lay their quarrel be- 
fore him. There the trap closed on them and the two sim- 
pletons were forced to resign their royal rights to the wily 
arbiter (May, 1808). Spain was thereupon given to Joseph 
Bonaparte, who before assuming his new dignity was obliged 
to surrender the kingdom of Naples, held for the last two 
years, to Caroline Bonaparte's husband, Murat, henceforth 
King Murat. 

The shameless violence and duplicity by which Napoleon 
seized the crown of Spain sent a thrill of horror through 
the Spanish people. By disposing of them as if they were 
a nation at auction he had wounded their pride, and instead 
of a peaceful occupation he found himself confronted with 
an insurrection. It was a new phenomenon upon the em- 
peror's path, and he failed to read the meaning of it. Con- 
vinced, soldier like, that there Avas no obstacle which would 
not yield to force, he rapidly diagnosed the Spanish situation 
as requiring a little treatment by cold steel. If the Spaniards 
had met the regular army which he now launched against 
them in the field, it is plain that their ineffective forces would 
have gone down before the French eagles like the rest of 
Europe. But wisely they assembled only in small guerrilla 
bands, swept from -ambuscades upon detachments and rear- 
guards, and were gone again before they could be punished. 
The summer of 1808 brought Napoleon his first serious mil- 
itary disasters, and to make things worse England imme- 
diately took a lively interest in Spanish affairs. Having 
waited in vain for Napoleon to seek her on the sea, she found 
and seized this opportunity to seek him on the land. In 



The French Revolution 403 

the summer of 1808 an English army disembarked in Por- 
tugal for the purpose of supporting the revolt of the penin- 
sula. When Napoleon, angered by the check received by 
his political system, appeared in person on the scene (au- 
tumn, 1808), he had no difficulty in sweeping the Spaniards 
into the hills and the English to their ships, but he was 
hardly gone when the scattered guerrillas ventured forth 
from their retreats and the English forced a new landing. 

Napoleon had now to learn that a people resolved to live Napoleon 
free cannot be conquered. The Spanish war swallowed the Spaniards 
immense sums and immense forces, but the emperor, as down - 
stubborn in his way as the Spaniards, would give ear to no 
suggestion of concession. Slowly, however, circumstances " 
told against him. The revolts showed no signs of abating, 
and when, in 1809, a capable general, Sir Arthur Wellesley, 
better known by his later title of duke of Wellington, took 
command of the English forces, and foot by foot forced his 
way toward Madrid, Napoleon's Spanish enterprise became 
hopeless. Of course that was not immediately apparent; 
but what did become all too soon apparent was that the 
enslaved states of central Europe were taking the cue from 
the Spaniards, and were preparing for a similar struggle 
with their oppressor. 

In the year 1809 Austria, encouraged by the Spanish sue- Austria tries 
cesses, was inspired to arouse the Germans to a national a German 
revolt. But the effort was premature, for as Prussia was msurrectlon 
still occupied by French troops, and the whole territory of 
the Confederation of the Rhine was pledged to Napoleon's 
interests, only detached bodies in the Tyrol, in Jerome's 
kingdom of Westphalia and elsewhere, responded to Aus- 
tria's call. At Wagram (July, 1809) Napoleon laid Austria 
a fourth time at his feet. In the Peace of Vienna, which 
followed, she was forced to cede Salzburg to Bavaria, give 
up most of her Polish provinces to the duchy of Warsaw and 



4<H 



The French Revolution 



Humiliation of 
Austria, 1809. 



Napoleon 
changes his 
political sys- 
tem, Russia 
being replaced 
by Austria. 



Review of 

Napoleon's 
position in 
1811. 



to the Czar of Russia, and her southern districts, which 
Napoleon reorganized as the Illyrian provinces, to France. 
It was but a trunk shorn of its boughs which the conqueror 
left, and it is not improbable that he would have felled the 
trunk, too, if he had not been forced at this time to provide 
for a complete change of his political system. 

The fact was the Czar Alexander was tiring of the 
alliance of Tilsit, which handed over the whole Continent 
to Napoleon, while Russia received no commensurate ad- 
vantage, besides being subjected to an intolerable burden 
by reason of the Continental System. Napoleon noticed the 
diminishing heartiness of the Czar, and resolved to secure 
himself against defection by seeking the friendship of 
Austria. That state was, after the war of 1809, in no 
position to refuse the proffered hand, and when Napoleon 
further demanded the emperor's daughter, Marie Louise, in 
marriage, that request, too, had to be granted. That he 
was already married to Josephine Beauharnais was a slight 
annoyance, disposed of by divorce on the ground that the 
union was childless. In April, 1810, the military upstart, 
for that is what Napoleon was from the point of view of 
the drawing-room and the court, celebrated his union with 
a daughter of the ancient imperial line of Hapsburg, and 
when, in the succeeding year, there was born to him a son 
and heir, to whom he gave in his cradle the sounding title of 
king of Rome, he could fancy that the Napoleonic empire 
was finally settled upon secure foundations. 

And surely never did Napoleon's power exhibit a greater 
outward splendor, never did his behests meet with more 
implicit obedience, than in the year 181 1. The spoiled son 
of fortune had now acquired the imperious habit of falling 
into a rage at the slightest sign of opposition. He imposed 
the Continental System with increasing rigor, and punished 
the Pope and his own brother Louis with the loss of their 



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The French Revolution 



405 



territories when they seemed to him to slacken their vigi- 
lance toward British goods. One cloud which would not dis- 
perse was the Spanish rising, but that war, with a little power 
of illusion, could be comfortably minimized to an outbreak 
of bandits and guerrillas. As Napoleon looked about en- 
slaved Europe, he might reasonably imagine that now was 
the most auspicious time to put an end to the last indepen- 
dent state of the Continent, the eastern colossus, Russia. He 
had made a friend of that nation for the purpose of securing 
an unhampered activity in the west, but having long since 
obtained from the alliance of Tilsit all that he could hope, 
it had become a burden to him as well as to Alexander. 

The breach between Napoleon and Alexander became Invasion of 
definite in the course of the year 181 1. Both powers began ' 

preparing for war, and in the spring of 181 2 Napoleon set 
in movement toward Russia the greatest armament that 
Europe had ever seen. A half million men, representing 
all the nationalities of Napoleon's cosmopolitan empire, 
seemed more than adequate to the task of bringing the Czar 
under the law of the emperor. And the expedition was 
at first attended by a series of splendid successes. In 
September Napoleon even occupied Moscow, the ancient 
capital of Russia, and there calmly waited to receive Alex- 
ander's submission. 

But he had underrated the spirit of resistance which ani- Napoleon at 
mated the empire of the Czar. Here, as in Spain, a de- oscow - 
termination to die rather than yield possessed every inhabi- 
tant, and Napoleon received the assurance of the national 
aversion in the deserted villages through which he marched. 
At Moscow he met with a crushing calamity in the destruc- 
tion of that city by fire. Whether the fire was laid by the 
retreating natives or caused by bands of marauding French 
has never been accurately settled. 

Napoleon lingered among the ruins of Moscow for some The retreat. 



406 The French Revolution 

weeks in the vain hope that the Czar, unnerved by the in- 
vasion of his country, would make peace. But for once 
Alexander was firm, and the delay overwhelmed the French 
with disaster. For since the retreat, unavoidable in a 
country eaten bare of supplies, was not begun till October 
19th, the poor troops were overtaken by winter and buried 
under its icy blasts. To the misery of cold were added 
hunger and the constant raids of the swift-moving Cossacks 
until the formidable Grand Army of the spring had melted 
into a few scattered bands of struggling fugitives. Napo- 
leon directed the rout through the first stages, but early in 
December he set out for Paris, realizing that he had 
sacrificed his veterans in an impossible enterprise. In 
his absence Marshal Ney, "the bravest of the brave," 
fighting like a common soldier, did what valor could to 
save the honor of France and the wreck of her military 
power. Late in December a few thousand starved, broken, 
and half-crazed men, whose brothers strewed the frozen 
plains of Russia, found refuge across the Niemen. 
The revolt of The loss of his splendid army was, in any case, a serious 

calamity for Napoleon. But it would become an irremedi- 
able catastrophe if it encouraged Germany, long throbbing 
with suppressed rage, to rise in revolt and create new com- 
plications at a juncture when he required all his strength to 
repair the supreme disaster of his life. Unluckily for Na- 
poleon, the German patriots felt this fact instinctively, and 
thrilled with the consciousness that never again would such 
an opportunity be offered them. They wanted a general 
ind national rising; but they saw that its success would be 
oest assured if its guidance were undertaken by Prussia. 
And Prussia, which Napoleon had trampled into the dust at 
Jena and shut into a tomb at Tilsit, did not deceive their 
expectations, and raised the standard of revolt 

Prussia since her overwhelming disasters had gone through 



The French Revolution 407 

a renovation which is one of the remarkable revivals of his- Therenai* 
tory. Her king and leading men had come to see that her p^ssia. 
overthrow was the inevitable consequence of her backward- 
ness, and resolved that new foundations would fiaVe-te-be 
laid in a series of sweeping reforms. Luckily, the state found 
the men to undertake the work. Stein, as chief minister, 
and Scharnhorst, as head of the war department, carried 
through a number of measures, such as the abolition of serf- 
dom, the creation of local self-government., and the reor- 
ganization of the army on a national and patriotic basis, 
which gave Prussia many of the advantages of the French 
Revolution. And with the new institutions was born a new 
spirit, unknown hitherto in this feudal and military state, 
which bound high and low together in a common passionate 
love of country. When this revived nation heard of Napo- 
leon's ruin on the Russian snow-fields, all classes were seized 
with the conviction that the great hour of revenge had come; 
no debate, no delay on the part of the timid king was suffered, 
and resistlessly swept along by the rising tide of enthusiasm, 
he was forced to sign an alliance with Russia and declare 
war (March, 1813). 

The disastrous campaign of 181 2 would have exhausted The campaign 
any other man than Napoleon. But he faced the new sit- par t. 13 " rs 
uation as undaunted as ever. By herculean efforts he suc- 
ceeded in mustering and training a new army, and in the 
spring of 1813 appeared suddenly in the heart of Germany, 
ready to punish the new coalition. Life and death depended 
on his defeating Russia and Prussia before the Confedera- 
tion of the Rhine, already simmering with revolt, and Aus- 
tria, only waiting for a chance to recover her own, had de- 
clared against him. At Liitzen (May 2d) and at Bautzen 
(May 20th) he maintained his ancient reputation. But 
clearly the day of the Jenas and Friedlands was over, for 
not only did he capture no cannon or men, but the allies fell 



\ 

\ 

408 The French Revolution 

The armistice back in good order on Silesia, while Napoleon had to confess 

june 4 . ^af. hjg victories had been paid for by such heavy losses 

that to win, at this rate, was equivalent to ruin. On June 4th 

he agreed to an armistice in order to reorganize his troops. 

The attitude Both parties now became aware that the issue of the cam- 

of Austria. x 

paign depended upon Austria, for so delicately adjusted were 

the scales between the contestants, that the side upon which 
she would throw her influence would have to win. In these 
circumstances Metternich, Austria's unscrupulous and jug- 
gling minister, undertook, at first, the role of mediator; but 
when Napoleon indignantly rejected the conditions for a 
general peace which Metternich proposed, Austria threw in 
The campaign her lot with the European coalition. In August, 1813, at 
part/ 3 ' the expiration of the truce, there followed a concerted for- 

ward movement on the part of the allies. Prussians, Rus- 
sians, and Austrians crowded in upon Napoleon, who sat 
ensconced in the heart of Germany, in Saxony. Having 
the smaller force, his outposts were gradually driven in, 
> a himself outmanoeuvred, and his concentrated host crushed 
utterly in a savage three days' battle at Leipsic (October 
1 6th- 1 8th). With such remnants as he could hold together 
he hurried across the Rhine. Germany was lost beyond 
recovery. The question now was: Would he be able to re- 
tain France? 
The winter If the great conqueror could have befriended himself with 

i8i4^ aign ° * ne ^ ea °^ rmm S over France alone, he might have ended 
the war by the acceptance of the Rhine boundary, which the 
allies now offered. But he refused to acknowledge that he 
was beaten, and by rejecting the proffered peace obliged his 
enemies to continue the war. In the winter they invaded 
France, resolved to annihilate him before he had recovered 
his strength. His defensive campaign, conducted in the 
cold of winter with slender forces, is regarded by military 
men as among his most brilliant achievements; but he was 



The French Revolution 409 

now hopelessly outnumbered, and when, on March 31st, the 

allies forced the gates of Paris, even Napoleon's confidence 

received a shock. As he looked about him he saw the whole 

east of France in the hands of his enemies, while the south 

was as rapidly falling into the power of Wellington, who in 

the two splendid campaigns of 181 2 and 1813 had pushed 

the French out of Spain and was now pursuing them across 

the Pyrenees. On April 6, 1814, at his castle of Fontaine- Napoleon 

bleau, Napoleon acknowledged that all was over, and of- April 6, 1814. 

fered his abdication. The allies conceded him the island 

of Elba (off the coast of Tuscany) as a residence, and then 

gave their attention to the problem of the future of France. 

Not from any enthusiasm for the House of Bourbon, but' The allies re- 

merely because there was no other way out of the difficulties, Bourbons. 

they finally gave their sanction to the accession to the throne 

of Louis XVIII., brother of the last king. As regards the 

extent of the restored kingdom, it was agreed in the Peace 

of Paris that France was to receive the boundaries of 1792. 

This important preliminary matter arranged, a general The Congress 
congress of the powers assembled at Vienna to discuss the 
reconstruction of Europe. The modern age has not seen a 
more brilliant gathering of notabilities. All the sovereigns 
and statesmen who had stood in the centre of public attention 
during the last momentous years were, with few exceptions^ 
present, and a single drawing-room sometimes held Czar 
Alexander, the great Wellington, the German patriot Stein, 
the courtly but treacherous Talleyrand, and that master of 
all diplomatic wiles, the Austrian chancellor Metternich. 
But before the Congress of Vienna had ended its labors, the 
anti-Napoleonic coalition, which the congress represented, 
was once more called upon to take the field. For in March, 
1 81 5, the news reached the allied sovereigns that Napoleon 
had made his escape from Elba, and had once more landed 
in France. 



4io 



The French Revolution 



The resolution formed by Napoleon, after only a few 
months of exile, to try conclusions once more with united 
Europe, was the resolution of despair. It was folly on the 
part of ths allies to expect that a man like him, with a burn- 
ing need of activity, would ever content himself with the lit- 
tle island-realm of Elba, especially as France, his willing 
prize, lay just across the water. It was equal folly on the 
part of Napoleon to fancy that he could thwart the will of 
united Europe; but being the man he was, there was a moral 
certainty that, sooner or later, he would make the attempt. 
On March ist he landed unexpectedly near Cannes, accom- 
panied by a guard of eight hundred of his old veterans, who 
had been permitted to attend him in exile; and no sooner 
had he displayed his banners than his former soldiers 
streamed to the standards to which they were attached with 
heart and soul by innumerable glorious memories. Mar 
shal Ney, who was sent out by the restored Bourbon king 
to take Napoleon captive, broke into tears at sight of his old 
leader, and folded him in his arms. There was no resisting 
the magnetic power of the name Napoleon. The familiar 
"Vive I'empereurl" rang through France till the lukewarm 
partisans of the Bourbon dynasty fell away from it with fev- 
erish alacrity. Discouraged by the diminishing ranks of his 
supporters, Louis presently fled across the border, while the 
hero of the soldiers- and peasants entered Paris amid wild 
acclamations. 

The Hundred Days, as Napoleon's restoration is called, 
form a mere after-play to the great drama which lies between 
the Russian campaign and the abdication of Fontainebleau, 
and which ended with the collapse of his empire of conquest. 
To revive that corpse against the will of united Europe was 
hopelessly out of the question. Hardly had the sovereigns 
at Vienna heard of Napoleon's return, when they launched 
their excommunication against him, and converged their 



The Trench Revolution 411 

columns from all sides upon his capital. The issue was de- Opening of the 

cided in Belgium. There Wellington had gathered a com- paifi anCam " 

posite Anglo-Dutch-German army, and thither marched to 

his assistance Marshal Bliicher with his Prussians. These 

enemies, gathered against his northern frontier, Napoleon 

resolved to meet first. With his usual swiftness he fell upon 

Bliicher on June 16th at Ligny, before this general could unite 

with Wellington, and beat him roundly. Leaving Marshal 

Grouchy with 30,000 men to pursue the Prussians, he next 

turned, on June 18th, against Wellington. 

Wellington, who had taken a strong defensive position Waterloo, 
near Waterloo, resolutely awaited the French attack. All Junei ,x I5 ' 
the afternoon Napoleon hurled his infantry and cavalry 
against the "iron duke's" positions without dislodging his 
tough opponent, and when toward evening the Prussians 
unexpectedly made their appearance on his right he was 
caught between two fires, and totally ruined. Precipitately 
he fled to Paris and there abdicated a second time. De- 
serted by all in his misfortunes, he now planned to escape 
to America, but finding the coast guarded by English 
cruisers, was obliged to take passage on the ship Bellerophon Napoleon 
to be carried first to England, and thence, in accordance to St. Helena, 
with the verdict of his victorious enemies, to the rocky, 
mid-Atlantic island of St. Helena. There, six years later 
(182 1), he died, a lonely and embittered exile. 

At Paris, meanwhile, the allies once more restored Louis Second resto- 
XVIII. to his ancestral throne, and by the Second Treaty xvill? 
of Paris, not quite so generous as that of the preceding year, 
handed over to him a France shorn of all its revolutionary 
acquisitions. 

The great drama called the French Revolution was over. Looking 
Beginning with a protest against the corruption and in- 
iquity of government and society, it had celebrated its first 
success when it overthrew the court and the privileged 



412 



The Fretich Revolution 



Distinction 
between Na- 
poleon and the 
Revolution. 



The enduring 
principles of 
the Revolution. 



orders. Unhappily, the leaders forgot that patient and solid 
reconstruction should always go hand in hand with wreck- 
age, and had permitted the movement to degenerate into 
anarchy. The uncertain domestic situation unfortunately 
became complicated with a war against monarchical Europe, 
which led to the creation of vast and victorious hosts, and 
ended by giving birth to a popular military hero. Thus 
the democratic forces created by the Revolution served to 
build a throne for Napoleon Bonaparte. Another might 
have been content with founding a new dynasty in France, 
but Napoleon lifted his eyes to something greater, and 
dreamed of the Empire of Charlemagne. That project was 
at the bottom of all his later wars, Wars of pure conquest, 
which he conducted with unique success — except against 
England, secure in her moated island — until his yoke caused 
his victims to lay aside every other question in order to crush 
him with their united strength. 

Clearly, in the light of this exposition, it is necessary to 
distinguish between the work of the Revolution and the 
ambition of Napoleon. The storm, which swept away the 
emperor, not only obliterated every vestige of his imperial 
creation, but threatened also to scatter all the mental and 
moral conquests of the preceding period. In the end these 
were spared, and happily spared, for if the world had a right 
to repel Napoleonic tyranny, it would have made a grievous 
mistake to reject with the tyrant all the blessings which the 
French Revolution had poured out in its first inspiring 
years. Naturally, owing to the animosities created by the 
long struggle, everything hailing from France was for the 
present under the ban. But much of the good that had 
been done could not again be undone. Certain principles 
and ideas which had been given a wide currency were too 
precious to be given up. They have become the founda- 
tions of nineteenth-century society. Among them let us 



The French Revolution 413 

select the following for brief consideration. (1) Social 
equality. — Feudalism, with its system of privileges for some 
and burdens for others, was replaced by the principle that 
all men are equal before the law and have the same duties 
and opportunities. (2) Religious toleration. — Instead of 
persecution, on the ground of religion, the state shall hence- 
forth give protection to all peaceful religious associations. 
(3) Sovereignty of the people. — The state is not the personal 
property of the monarch, but belongs to the nation, which 
has the right to direct its own destiny. (4) Nationality. -r- 
The people of the same blood and speech are justified in 
coming together and forming a national state. 

Such were the principles wrought out for humanity by 
that vast conflagration, the French Revolution. Although 
they were rejected by official Europe in the period of reac- 
tion which followed the fall of Napoleon, they found shelter 
in the minds of a few fearless men, and, communicated 
gradually to others, became the leading forces in the de- 
velopment of the nineteenth century. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE PERIOD OF REACTION 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe (popular edition) 
Chapters XIII .-XV.; Phillips, Modern Europe (1815- 
1900), Chapters I., II., pp. 14-22; III.-VIL; Seigno- 
bos, Political History of Europe Since 18 14, Chapter 
X., pp. 286-305; Chapter XL, pp. 326-33; Chapter 
XXL, pp. 648-57; Chapter XXV.; Andrews, Modern 
Europe, Vol. I., Chapters III., V.; Phillips, The War 
of Greek Independence (1821-33); Thayer, Dawn of 
Italian Independence (1814-49), Vol. I., Books 1-2; 
Bolton King, History of Italian Unity (1814-71), 
Vol. I., Part I. 

Source Readings: Translations and Reprints, Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, Vol. I., No. 3 (text of Holy 
Alliance, German Bund, etc.); Robinson, Readings, 
Vol. II., Chapter XXXIX. (Talleyrand, Metternich, 
etc.); Old South Leaflets, No. 56 (the Monroe 
Doctrine) . 

The Congress The Congress of Vienna, which met to arrange the af- 
fairs of Europe after the unparalleled storms of the past gen- 
eration, embodied the agreements reached among the pow- 
ers in a so-called Final Act. Taken in connection with the 
Peace of Paris, this "document traces the political geography 
of reconstructed Europe. It also conveys an idea of the 
principles of the victors. These principles have been vehe- 
mently condemned, but were, after all, the. natural out- 
growth of the conservative triumph. It was felt that the 
general unrest produced by Napoleon's having erased 

414 



The Period of Reaction 415 

boundaries, toppled over old dynasties, and called new It s principl e, 
ones into being, should be replaced by certainty and per- terntoriaUom- 
manence, and the surest method to achieve this end pensation, and 

7 . , . hostility to 

seemed to be to reestablish as far as possible all the states, France, 
great and small, in existence before the late disturbances. 
These states were said to be " legitimate," as against the 
illegitimate creations of Napoleon. The desirability of 
sifting the sheep from the goats, on the score of this distinc- 
tion of " legitimacy," was first championed by the supple 
Frenchman Talleyrand, and gradually imposed itself as a 
piece of divine wisdom upon the congress. But while 
"legitimacy" made for the restoration of the old dynasties, 
the great powers did not forget to compensate themselves 
territorially for their past losses and labors. Their hunger 
for land modified the plan of a restoration pure and simple, 
and that plan was further affected by the desire to check 
all possible future aggressions on the part of the disturbing 
element, France. Legitimacy, territorial compensation, 
and hostility to France are the main forces out of the inter- 
action of which grew the new map of Europe. 

The g^e^testuQterest at the congress gathered around Changes h 
central Europep as the region which had been subjected to Germany, 
the most sweeping changes by the Revolution. In Italy the 
o2d_goyerjiments-were restored with the exception of the re- 
public of Genoa, which was given to Sardinia to strengthen 
it against France, and the republic of Venice, which was 
given to Austria to compensate it for Belgium. This ac- 
commodation caused little trouble compared with the nego- 
tiations over Germany. As no one wanted to have the Holy 
Roman Empire back again, it was agreed, in spite of the 
clamor of the German patriots^ who favored a strong united 
state, that the German princes should be considered sover- 
eign and bound together in a loose federation. Serious The trouble 
trouble came when Prussia asked, as her compensation, the overSaxoir > 



416 



The Period of Reaction 



The rearrange- 
ments of 
Vienna dis- 
appoint 
national hopes. 



whole of Saxony. The right of Prussia to indemnity was 
admitted in principle, because she had lost her Polish prov- 
inces, and Saxony was considered in some quarters as rea- 
sonable payment, on the ground that her king, having clung 
to Napoleon to the last, had forfeited whatever claim he 
might have had under the theory of legitimacy. In fact, 
Prussia and Russia had come to a private agreement, by 
which Russia, in return for the Prussian Polish spoils, agreed 
to support Prussia in her effort to gain Saxony. But Aus- 
tria, England, and France firmly declared themselves against 
this arrangement, and the conflict was not adjusted by a 
compromise until both sides had begun to make prepara- 
tions for war. By the final agreement, Prussia got half of 
Saxony, the remainder being returned to the "legitimate" 
sovereign. For the part she gave up she received in ex- 
change a solid block of territory on the lower Rhine, while 
Alexander acquired the grand-duchy of Warsaw — with the 
exception of the province of Posen, given to Prussia — and 
converted his acquisition into the kingdom of Poland, with 
himself as king. 

Between France and Germany lay Belgium and Holland, 
both incorporated with France during the period of French 
ascendancy. In order to establish a strong bulwark against 
France the congress consolidated these states and placed 
them under the rule of the "legitimate" House of Orange. 
The new creation received the name of the kingdom of the 
Netherlands. England, the oldest and the most successful 
of the enemies of Napoleon, was paid in colonial territory, 
receiving South Africa (the Cape), Ceylon, Malta, and 
Heligoland. 

The most serious danger to the permanence of these ar- 
rangements arose from the fact that they disappointed the 
national hopes of the Italian, the Polish, the German, and 
the Belgian peoples. Let us examine the agreements from 




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The Period of Reaction 417 

this point of view. In Italy the Bourbon Ferdinand was 
recognized as king of Naples and Sicily, joined under the 
name of the Two Sicilies; the Pope was restored to the 
States of the Church; the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine to 
Tuscany; the king of Sardinia to Piedmont, increased by 
Genoa; and Austria was put in possession of Lombardy and 
Venetia. The lesser states, like Modena and Parma, we 
may leave out of consideration. As no attempt was made 
to bind these states together, and as the old jealousies hin- 
dered united counsels, Austria, a foreign power, by taking 
advantage of the inner divisions, acquired an easy para- 
mountcy. The Poles, although treated not ungenerously 
by Alexander, being given a constitution of which we shall 
presently hear, were nevertheless deceived in their national 
expectations by the failure of the congress to restore their 
state in its ancient limits. The Catholic Belgians abhorred 
their Protestant masters, the Dutch, while in Germany, 
though no foreign sovereign was imposed, the conclusions 
of the congress deeply offended the patriotic party, x'he 
German situation, being complicated, requires further eluci- 
dation. 

There can be no doubt that the passing of the Holy TheGermae 
Roman Empire was an unmitigated blessing, but Napoleon Sltua lon " 
did more than merely inter this august mummy. With his 
unrivalled genius for order, he abolished a great number 
of the small sovereignties, above all, those feudal survivals, 
the free knights, the free cities, and the prince-bishops, 
and with their territory fattened the lay princes. As a result 
of this cleansing process there were now, instead of some 
three hundred, only thirty-eight sovereign states. These 
may be divided, for the sake of convenience, into three 
groups: first, the two great powers, Austria and Prussia; 
second, the middle states, to wit, the kingdoms of Bavaria, 
Saxony, Wurtemberg and Hanover, with the grand-duchy 



4i8 



The Period of Reaction 



he reaction. 



The Holy 
Alliance. 



of Baden; and third, Weimar, Hesse, and all the rest, con- 
stituting the small states. Now the national party, headed 
by the Prussian statesman, Stein, demanded a close federal 
union, but Metternich, who feared that a united Germany 
would not serve the interests of Austria, carried the day and 
persuaded the German delegates to be content with a loose 
association under the name Bund, (Union) . The Bund was 
to transact business through a Diet of state delegates as- 
sembled at Frankfort-on-the-Main, but as the heads of the 
states yielded none of their sovereignty to the common Par- 
liament, it will be seen — and such was Metternich's plan — 
that the Bund, as a means of effective union, was a farce. 
Germany remained a mere geographical expression, and the 
disappointment of the patriots was keen. 

But there was another sentiment besides that of nation- 
ality offended at Vienna. We have glanced at the enthu- 
siasm over legitimacy, a significant sign of the widely preva- 
lent animosity felt against the Revolution and its democratic 
principles. The fact is that Europe was swept in 1815 by 
a wave of religious and political reaction that carried the 
Viennese diplomats off their feet. The evidence is furnished 
by a document drawn up by Czar Alexander, in which he 
pledged himself to govern his state in accordance with 
Biblical principles, and which he induced all his brother- 
potentates either to sign or give their assent to. This treaty 
has become famous under the name of the Holy Alliance, 1 
not by reason of anything which the document itself con- 
tains, for it is a heap of well-meant platitudes, but because 
the name Holy Alliance became popular as a designation 
for the leagued reactionaries of Europe. In this sense all 
Europe constituted the Holy Alliance for a time; but as 
liberal principles gradually reasserted themselves in the 



1 See the text in Translations and Reprints (University of Pennsyl- 
vania), Vol. I. " It is verbiage," said Metternich on perusing it. 



The Period of Reaction 419 

west, England and France refused to cooperate in the sup- 
pression of democratic activity, and Russia, Austria, and 
Prussia were left to sustain the conservative doctrines as 
best they could. But if the Holy Alliance itself is only a 
collection of sounding phrases, the strong conservative sen- 
timent of Europe managed to create at least one practical 
means of expression. It was agreed that the powers who Periodical 
had reorganized Europe should meet in congress, from congres 
time to time, for the purpose of considering the European 
situation and for "the maintenance of all transactions 
hitherto established." This was tantamount to a declara- 
tion of war against all favorers of change and progress, 
and Metternich, the clever promoter of the congressional 
policy, presently resolved to use the parliament of Europe 
for the purpose of crushing revolutionary activity in any 
country as soon as it arose. This is the Austrian chan- Intervention, 
cellor's famous policy of intervention, and congresses and 
intervention, not Alexander's mystico-bombastic Holy Alli- 
ance, are the real tools by which the reaction held Europe 
in a vice. Such was Metternich's authority, that he im- 
posed his machinery of repression for some time with the 
consent of the powers, but England, as we shall see, presently 
grew suspicious, and the policy of shutting Europe in the 
mausoleum of conservatism had to be given up. But Reaction 
summing up what has been said, it will be seen that the con- j^and 
servative framers of reconstructed Europe ranged against nationalism, 
themselves the forces of liberalism as well as those of na- 
tionalism, and that from this circumstance the whole his- 
tory of the nineteenth century takes its imprint. Our sub- 
sequent chapters are the tale of the heroic struggles by which 
liberalism and nationalism acquire an honorable recognition. 

The first serious test of Metternich's Chinese policy of a Revolution in 
Europe cast in an unalterable mould came wnen the Medi- P 41 "' 1 
terranean countries were shaken by a series of revolutions. 



420 



The Period of Reaction 



Revolution in 
Naples. 



Revolution in 
Portugal. 



The beginning was made by Spain. The fall of Napoleon 
had brought back the deposed Bourbon monarch, Ferdi- 
nand VII., who showed his moral fibre by beginning his reign 
with a perjury. Although he had sworn to maintain the 
constitution, called the Constitution of 1812, and drawn 
up during the sovereign's absence by the heroic defenders 
of the Spanish soil, he not only set it aside as soon as he 
had his hand once more on the helm, but encouraged a 
cruel and wholesale persecution of the patriots, on the 
ground that they bore the taint of liberalism. Spain fell 
back into the Middle Ages, and the court, with its corrup- 
tion, and the clergy, with its Inquisition, governed the country 
in accordance with their selfish interests. But disaffection 
kept pace with the hateful tyranny, and when in January, 
1820, a few soldiers declared themselves in rebellion, the 
whole country almost in an instant caught fire. In Madrid 
there was a riot, which was not appeased until the cringing 
sovereign had made his bow to the masses by restoring the 
Constitution of 181 2. 

This Spanish success created imitators. In Naples the 
fall of Napoleon had brought back another Bourbon, also 
named Ferdinand, who bore a remarkable moral resem- 
blance to his relative of Madrid. On receipt of the happy 
news from Spain, the army raised the banner of revolt, and 
with the aid of the people forced the king to accept for his 
realm of Naples the now popular Spanish constitution. 
Nor did this complete the tale of revolution. The contagion 
spread to Portugal. In the absence of the "royal family, 
which was still in Brazil, whither it had fled on Napoleon's 
invasion in 1807, a provisional government was hurried 
into office which tried to conjure the storm by a profusion 
of liberal promises. 

Against these popular movements in the Latin south 
the indignant Metternich resolved to set in action his ma- 



The Period of Reaction 421 

chinery of congresses and intervention. But if he hoped The 

for unanimity among the powers for the maintenance of of ^ropmu 

what he called "order," he soon saw his mistake. A andLaibach. 

meeting at Troppau (1820), called for the discussion of 

Neapolitan affairs, which from their nearness were the 

most pressing, revealed that England and France had no 

desire to share in a crusade against democracy. But the 

Austrian's counsel still prevailed with Russia and Prussia, 

and intervention was agreed on in principle, though it was 

not to begin until Ferdinand himself had been heard in the 

case. The congress was therefore adjourned to Laibach, 

near the Italian border, and the mendacious Bourbon had 

no sooner appeared (182 1) and denounced his late liberal 

acts as wrung from him by force, than Austria accepted 

the commission of her friends and marched an army into 

Naples. (•" 

Unfortunately, the Neapolitan liberals had not been able Intervention 
to call a strong government into being. They lacked ex- Naples, 1821 
perience, and worst of all, by falling out with the island of 
Sicily, which asked for home rule, were obliged to send a 
part of their army across the straits to maintain their au- 
thority. The mere approach of the Austrian forces served 
to scatter the Neapolitan soldiery and break all opposition 
to the restoration of Ferdinand as absolute king. When 
the patriots in the Italian north, and especially in Pied- 
mont, tried to raise an insurrection in the Austrian rear, 
in aid of the liberal movement in the south, Austria 
marched an army into Piedmont also. Thus Metternich, 
by the exercise of a police power, for which he found au- 
thority in his own principles and in the mandate of the 
eastern potentates, practically made himself master of 
Italy. 

This first success only stimulated the appetite of the three 
eastern courts, and when the court of Paris, which had been 



422 



The Period of Reaction 



Intervention 
of France in 
Spain, 1823. 



Question of 
the Spanish 
colonies. 



Their freedom 
secured by 
Canning and 
President 
Monroe. 



wavering, now came over to their side, they could take an- 
other important step. At a congress held at Verona (1822) 
they commissioned France to interfere in Spain. A French 
army under the duke of Angouleme, the king's nephew ? 
crossed the Pyrenees, and entered Madrid practically with- 
out opposition. The downfall of Spanish liberalism was as 
swift and ignominious as that of Naples, and for substantially 
the same reasons. The leaders were violent and inexper- 
ienced, and failed to attach the impoverished and ignorant 
masses to their programme. Priest- and beggar-ridden Na- 
ples and Spain were not good soil for the Tree of Liberty. 
The result of French intervention was a second restoration, 
marked, like that of Naples, by a cruel persecution of the 
liberals. The Spanish sovereign, as revolting a combina- 
tion of imbecility, ignorance, and duplicity as ever disgraced 
a throne, now hoped that the European monarchs would 
extend their services to America. The Spanish colonies, 
embracing the vast regions of Central and South America, 
were in revolt, and Ferdinand argued that to put down re- 
bellion across the seas was as holy work as repressing it in 
Spain. 

The rebellion of the Spanish colonies had run a curious 
course, for it had begun not with a movement against the 
mother country, but with the patriotic refusal to accept the 
usurper, Joseph Bonaparte. During Napoleon's struggle in 
Spain the colonies had governed themselves, and acquir- 
ing a taste for independence had, on Ferdinand's restora- 
tion, declared their unwillingness to return to the old alle- 
giance without some provision for home rule. This the 
stubborn Ferdinand had rejected, with the result Uiat the 
colonies, one after another, had renounced the Spanish con- 
nection. On Ferdinand's, appeal to the powers, the question 
of supporting him was taken up, when the English minis- 
ter, Canning, heartily seconded by the United States, put a 



The Period of Reaction 423 



quietus on the matter. Canning adopted the bold measure 
of publicly acknowledging the colonies as sovereign states, 
and President Monroe went a step farther by threatening 
to regard any interference in American affairs as an act un- 
friendly to his government. The declaration of the Amer- 
ican president, made in 1823, furnishes the basis of what 
has since been called 'he Monroe Doctrine. The upshot 
was that the Spanish colonies made good their independ- 
ence, and that the leagued champions of reaction, to the 
joy of the liberal parties the world over, met their first ser- 
ious check. Shortly after, they became aware that there 
were regions, even in Europe, which they could not control. 
For with Naples and Spain won back to absolutism, logic 
demanded that Portugal be served the same way. But Por- Failure of the 
tugal being on the coast was accessible to England; and inPortugal. 06 
when Canning prepared to protect it from interference by 
sending an army thither, the allies saw fit to abandon their 
enterprise. 

Reviewing the great events in the Mediterranean countries, The reaction 
we observe that the reaction headed by Metternich won ground. 
some significant triumphs, but had to relax its principles in 
at least two instances, owing chiefly to the veto of England. 
Such strength as the conservative programme mustered re- 
sulted from union, and the defection of England under the 
direction of Canning showed that union, on the absurd basis 
of political immobility, could not be long maintained. It is 
frequently said that Canning broke up the Holy Alliance. 
A more correct statement would be that England under Can- 
ning deserted, the Holy Alliance, and that, weakened by 
defection, it was shortly after broken up by another event to 
which we now turn — the Greek revolution. 

At the very moment when the eastern powers were formu- The revolt of 
lating their policy against popular movements at the con- 
gress of Laibach, the news reached them that the nefarious 



424 The Period of Reaction 

spirit of revolt had raised its head in the Turkish Empire 
also, and that the Greeks, subjected for centuries to the Sul- 
tan, demanded independence. If the diplomats of the school 
of Metternich had been accessible to generous impulses, 
they would have applauded a movement which aimed to 
cast off the tyrannical yoke of the Mohammedan conqueror; 
but, blinded by prejudice, they unhesitatingly laid their 
curse upon the new rising. The case of the Greeks was as 
follows: With the growing decay of the Turkish Empire the 
government of the Sultan, conducted by venal and cruel pa- 
shas, had grown steadily more despicable, while the Greeks, 
largely through the stimulating influence of the French 
Revolution, had experienced a renascence. Their language 
and literature bloomed anew, they studied with enthusiasm 
their great past, and they accumulated wealth by almost 
monopolizing the commerce of the eastern Mediterranean. 
Angered by the failure of Europe to do anything for them 
after the fall of Napoleon, they formed a secret society, and 
Relation of in 1821 rose by concerted action. The mass of the nation 
SdS S i'a?s reeks ' lived in the restricted territory of ancient Hellas, but off- 
shoots spread in complex ramifications throughout the 
Slav populations of the Balkan region. Further, the Slavs, 
having been Christianized in the days of Greek ascendancy, 
belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church, and their clergy, 
especially the prelates, were of Hellenic blood and speech. 
The leaders of 182 1 therefore planned to make the revolt a 
general Christian movement under Greek guidance, and 
were not a little disconcerted to discover that the Slavs would 
not follow them. In fact, the religious predominance of the 
Greeks was so unpopular among the Roumanians and Bul- 
garians, that they loved their Christian teachers little better 
than their Mohammedan masters. The rivalry appearing 
at this point between Greeks and Slavs, and later among the 
various tribes of Slavs, has greatly retarded the liberation of 



The Period of Reaction 425 

the Balkans. In the year 182 1 it threatened ruin, until 
the Greeks, discovering that they could depend on none 
but themselves, bravely shouldered the whole responsibil- 
ity. In a sudden rush they succeeded in clearing almost 
all of the Morea (Peloponnesus) and central Greece of the 
enemy. 

The Sultan, boundlessly enraged at this success, made The Sultan 
formidable efforts to recover the \bsX territory. His armies theGreeks. Ue 
penetrated (1822) into the revolted districts, but failed to 
break the undaunted resistance of the little people. Balked 
of their prey, the Turks committed abominable atrocities, to 
be followed presently on the part of the Greeks by acts of 
similar fury. The tale of mutual butchery surpasses belief, 
and becomes intelligible only when we remember that the 
animosity, usual between slave and master, was here blown 
into an unquenchable flame by religious fanaticism. In the The Sultan 
year 1824 the Sultan, feeling the exhaustion of his resources, ft e pasha of 
invited the cooperation of his powerful vassal, Mehemed Egypt for help. 
Ali, pasha of Egypt, and the arrival on the scene of this 
capable and unscrupulous ruler soon gave another com- 
plexion to affairs. Using the island of Crete as a base, the 
Egyption forces penetrated into the Morea, and by 1826 
had made such great strides that to the casual view the 
Greek cause seemed doomed. But at this point Europe, 
hitherto shamefully indifferent, interposed, and Greece was 
saved. 

As long as Metternich's influence prevailed, it was clear England, Rus- 
that Europe would quietly look on while the Sultan waded l^ e Tto in- 3,110 
in the blood of his Christian subjects. The peoples of ^ er fQ be " 
Europe, it is true, in contrast to the governments, made no 1827. 
secret of their sympathy with the cause of freedom. Bands 
of volunteers, among whom was the most famous poet of 
the time, Lord Byron, 1 gathered under the Greek banners, 

1 He died of fever, a martyr to the cause, in 1824 at Missolonghi. 



426 



The Period of Reaction 



They destroy 
the 

Mohammedan 
fleet at 
Navarino. 



War between 
Turkey and 
Russia, 1828- 
29. 



Otto of Ba- 
varia is called 
to the Greek 
throne. 



but such occasional help hardly delayed the triumph of 
the Egyptian pasha. Finally, in 1826, Canning succeeded 
in interesting the new Czar, Nicholas I., who had just suc- 
ceeded his brother Alexander, in the Greek cause, and 
together they agreed to interpose. In the next year they 
succeeded in bringing France to their side, and the three 
powers agreed (Treaty of London) to end hostilities at 
once. This resolution, taken by a majority of the powers, 
and formed in behalf of freedom against an established 
and legitimate sovereign, may be accepted as the finishing 
blow to the so-called Holy Alliance. The fleets of the 
three powers sailed to the Morea to inform the Egyptian 
commander that warfare must cease, and when the outraged 
Mussulman refused to comply, his fleet was attacked at 
Navarino (October 20, 1827) and utterly wrecked. 

The roar of the guns at Navarino announced the birth 
of a free state to the world, but the Sultan was not yet 
willing to yield the point. Mistakenly thinking that he 
could save the day, he issued a defiance to his nearest 
enemy, the Czar, who answered with a declaration of war. 
Thus the Greek struggle terminated in a Turco-Russian 
war, in which the Russians soon proved their superiority, 
crossed successively the Danube and the Balkans, and 
moved upon Constantinople. In this crisis the Sultan's re- 
sistance collapsed, and in the Treaty of Adrianople (1829) 
he yielded every point at issue. Not only did he grant the 
powers the right to settle the affairs of Greece, but he also 
conceded home rule to the Roumanian provinces (Walla- 
chia and Moldavia). Furthermore, Russia acquired a right 
of perpetual interference in the affairs of Turkey, which 
practically put the Sultan at her mercy. 

After prolonged discussions over the future of Greece, 
the powers agreed that the country was to constitute a free 
monarchy and settled the crown upon Otto, a Bavarian 



The Period of Reaction 427 

prince. But before this result was reached, Europe itself 
had broken with the reaction by a general revolutionary 
upheaval, having its origin in the old centre of disturbance, 
France. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE BOURBON RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1830 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe, Chapter XVI.; 
Phillips, Modern Europe, Chapter II., pp. 22-36; 
Chapters VIII.-IX.; Seignobos, Europe Since 1814, 
Chapter V., pp. 103-35; Chapter VIII., pp. 229-38; 
Chapter XII., pp. 374-88; Andrews, Modern Europe, 
Chapters IV., VI. 

Source Readings: Anderson, Constitutions and Docu- 
ments, Nos. 101-5; Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., 
Chapter XXXIX. (French charter of 1814, reasons 
for Belgian independence). 

The restoration of the Bourbons in 18 14, and again in 
1 81 5, was the work of the allies, for the old royal family 
was as good as forgotten in France and aroused no en- 
thusiasm among the people. Its position, therefore, was 
precarious, and its success would depend on the wisdom 
with which it used its opportunity. Louis XVIII., the 
most moderate member of his family, made a not un- 
promising beginning when he published a constitution (la 
charte constitutionelle) , which recognized the institutions of 
Napoleon — his administration, his judicial system, his 
church, his army, and even his nobility — and conceded to 
the people a share in legislation by two houses, a Chamber 
of Peers and a Chamber of Deputies. Here was the solemn 
assurance that the restoration of the old dynasty did not 
mean the return of the old regime, and that France was to 
remain in possession of the social and administrative ad- 
vantages secured by the Revolution. 

428 



The Revolution of iSjo 429 

The main problem before the king was to create con- Theultra- 
fidence and allay suspicion. But this was difficult in view roy 
of the fact that he was surrounded at court by the emigres, 
who had flocked back with the fall of Napoleon and foolishly 
imagined that they had come once more into their own. 
At their head was the count of Artois, the king's fanatic 
brother, who in twenty-five years of exile had learned 
nothing and forgotten nothing. These courtly gentlemen 
thought chiefly of revenge and repression. Selfishly ani- 
mated with the desire to recover their confiscated estates and 
to restore the Church to power, they compassed, after a few 
ephemeral triumphs, their own ruin and that of the royal 
family. Their party policy — they were known as ultra- 
royalists — was not, at least for the present, to overthrow 
the constitution, but to insist on a sharp control of the 
press and to insure themselves a majority in the chamber 
by restricting the right to vote to a very small body of 
wealthy citizens. 

Louis XVIII., with laudable common-sense, at first re- Louis, at first 
sis ted the clamor of the ultras, but was too weak to main- to&euLtras. S 
tain his position in the face of their continued pressure. 
The assassination in 1820 of his nephew, the duke of Berri, 
shook him profoundly. Although the murder was the deed 
of a fanatic, the liberals were held responsible for it, and 
had to yield power to the ultras under their leader, Villele. 
Now at last the party of the hated emigres had conquered 
the king; controlling also the ministry and chambers, it 
carried what laws it pleased, muzzled the press, limited the 
right to vote, sent an army into Spain to put down revolu- 
tion, and governed France in a way to delight the heart of 
Metternich. While this party was floating on the tide of 
power Louis XVIII. died (1824). He was succeeded by 
the count of Artois, under the title Charles X., whose ac- 
cession completed the triumph of the forces of reaction. 



43Q 



The Bourbon Restoration 



Events now rapidly travelled toward the inevitable crisis. 
The repressive policy of Villele raised him enemies even 
among the royalist deputies, and the elections of 1827 
brought him a crushing defeat. He took his dismissal, but 
the infatuated king clung stubbornly to the policy of the 
past, only to find that the Chamber of Deputies would no 
longer support him and that the country began to show 
ominous signs of unrest. With the courage of ignorance he 
resolved to break resistance by an illegal act, a so-called 
coup d'etat. On July 26, 1830, he issued, in the spirit of 
the old absolutism, four ordinances by which he practically 
suppressed the newspapers and still further limited the-jright 
to vote. "~~"~---— _— — 

The ordinances sounded a challenge which was immedi- 
ately taken up. Bands of students and workmen paraded 
the streets cheering the constitution; but presently the 
ominous cry was raised and echoed from street to street, 
"Down with the Bourbons! " The king himself was at St. 
Cloud and the few thousand troops in Paris were not ade- 
quate to keep the insurgents in hand. Occasional conflicts 
soon led to a pitched battle, in which the soldiers, outnum- 
bered and fighting without enthusiasm, yielded ground 
until their commander ordered them to evacuate the capi- 
tal. On the night of July 29th, the people, brimful, after 
three days of fighting, of the old republican spirit, rested 
from their bloody and triumphant work. 

In spite of Charles's misrule, there was a large monarchi- 
cal party of liberal tendency still in France, and this party 
now stepped forward to save the country from anarchy. 
In opposition to the street-fighters, who were workmen of 
republican sympathies, they were members of the middle 
class or bourgeoisie. In a gathering of leaders it was decided 
that what France wanted was a really constitutional mon- 
archy, and that the person to secure it was Louis Philippe, 



And the Revolution of 1830 431 

duke of Orleans. The duke was head of the younger branch 
of the House of Bourbon and had a revolutionary record, for 
he had served for a time (1792-93) in the republican army. 
This, and the fact that his father was the unsavory Egalite 
of Jacobin fame, had opened an unbridgeable chasm between 
him and the elder branch of his House. At the invitation of 
the moderates he appeared in Paris and by an adroit con- 
ciliation of the republicans, who had accepted the aged 
Lafayette as leader, took the reins into his hands, prac- 
tically without opposition. The first business of the im- 
provised government would in all likelihood be a struggle 
with Charles X. But the king pleasantly disappointed ex- 
pectations. In a fit of despondency he resigned in favor 
of his little grandson and fled to England; but the Chamber 
of Deputies chose to take no further note of his acts, and, Louis Philippe 
on August 7th, proceeded to proclaim Louis Philippe king French. 1 e 
of the French. 

The succession of the younger or Orleans branch of the Results of the 
Bourbons to the throne, which at first blush seems to measure 
the whole achievement of the so-called July revolution, 
does not express the whole change which came over France. 
In the first place, the constitution was modified in a liberal 
sense, above all, by reducing the property qualification and 
thereby doubling the number of electors; and, second, the 
coronation of Louis Philippe was nothing less than a com- 
plete change of system. Charles X. represented legitimacy 
and the old regime; he was identified with the emigres and 
the Church, and ruled by grace of God. Louis Philippe, 
a revolutionary and illegitimate sovereign, was abominated 
and avoided by the old royalists, and in order to secure his 
throne had to lean upon the monarchical middle class. For 
this reason the July monarchy is often called the reign of 
the bourgeoisie, and Louis Philippe himself the citizen- 
king (roi-bourgeois). Caricatures habitually represented 



revolution. 



432 



The Bourbon Restoration 



him as a thickset, comfortable grocer, armed with a huge 
umbrella. 

Meanwhile, the report of the revolution in Paris had 
travelled abroad, producing joy among the peoples of Eu- 
rope and equal consternation among the governments. 
Since the work of the reaction was so easily undone in 
France, there was good reason to hope that the national 
and liberal sentiment, outraged by the Congress of Vienna 
and persecuted by the mean-spirited police-control of 
Metternich and Alexander, might assert itself with suc- 
cess. France, ever since the eighteenth century the ac- 
knowledged leader of opinion in Europe, had given the 
signal, to which her imitators and admirers everywhere 
joyfully responded. 

The first people to be infected with the new spirit were the 
Belgians. The reader will remember that by the Congress 
of Vienna the old Austrian provinces had been annexed to 
Holland in order to create a strong power on the French 
border. But the union was unfortunate, for the Belgians 
were not treated as equals but subjected to the Dutch, while 
the fact that one state was Protestant and the other Catholic 
kept up a constant irritation, very cleverly fostered by the 
Belgian clergy. Besides, there was the question of race; 
while a large section of the Belgians were Flemings and 
closely allied to the Dutch, about one-half were Walloons, 
that is, Celts who used the French language. Lastly, 
Flemings and Walloons alike were imbued with French 
civilization and looked rather toward Paris for inspiration 
than toward The Hague. 

In August, 1830, a revolt, begun in Brussels, spread so 
rapidly that the Dutch army had to abandon the whole 
country with the exception of a few fortresses. King 
William, who had treated the Belgian national movement 
with much contempt, now offered concessions, but it was 



And the Revolution of 1830 433 

too late. Nothing short of complete independence would 
satisfy the revolutionists, and since the Dutch king resisted 
this demand, war was almost a certainty. 

Here was an opportunity for a typical Metternichian Europe inter- 
intervention in behalf of the "legitimate" monarch, but in f r ^eBe?- 
proof that democracy reigned supreme for the moment, the S ians - 
exact opposite occurred. A conference of the powers held 
in London decided to yield to the will of the Belgian people 
and sever their lot from the Dutch. King William was 
cowed into acquiescence, and, not without many difficulties 
and delays, the Belgians declared themselves a constitutional 
monarchy and elected Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as their king. 
The boundary of the new r realm Caused a prolonged dispute 
with the offended king of the Netherlands, but this matter, 
too, was gradually disposed of, and Belgium, a new state 
under a new dynasty, was added to the fraternity of na- 
tions. 

In central Europe, in Italy and Germany, the revolution The revolt 
was not received with such enthusiasm as might be expected, irfitaiy! 3 ° 
when we consider that these countries had been made the 
innocent victims of the treaties of 1815. In Italy there was 
no outbreak outside the papal states, where the government, 
exclusively in the hands of the clergy, was as unprogressive 
as that of Turkey itself. Of course the Pope called in the 
Austrians, who quickly extinguished the revolutionary fire. 
The fact was that Italy, in consequence of the defeat of its 
democratic hopes in 182 1 and its experience of Austrian 
omnipotence, was unwilling for the present to risk a 
national conflict. The total result of the year 1830 for the 
peninsula was an increased sense of enslavement to Austria 
and an increased hatred of the master. 

In Germany political activity had been reduced to very Germany dur- 
meagre proportions between 1815 and 1830. The Bund, as nancerf 01111 " 
its projectors planned, was treated as a nonentity by the Mettenuch. 



434 



The Bourbon Restoration 



Prussia creates 
the Zollverein. 



The revolution 
of 1830 in 
Germany. 



sovereign states and soon became a laughing-stock. 1 The 
only occasion on which it showed signs of life was when, 
at the instance of Metternich, it adopted police measures 
for bridling the universities and the press, and hunting the 
sporadic democrats to their holes (Carlsbad decrees, 1819). 
In the middle states of South Germany — Bavaria, Wurtem- 
berg, Baden — constitutions were granted by the rulers, and 
here all that Germany could show of political activity dur- 
ing this period took refuge. The two great states, Austria 
and Prussia, and almost all of the small North German 
states, were, politically speaking, as dead as extinct volca- 
noes. In all this region absolutism flourished unchecked. 
In Austria the reaction had no single redeeming feature; 
Metternich's hand seemed to have paralyzed the national 
energies. In Prussia the case was somewhat different. 
The king had indeed not fulfilled his promise to his people, 
given at the height of the struggle with Napoleon, to create 
a representative government, but he offered some compen- 
sation by a rigidly honest administration and a progressive 
economic policy. His leading achievement was the Customs- 
Union, called Zollverein. Begun in 1818 and completed 
after patient efforts continued through a generation, it gath- 
ered around Prussia, under a uniform tariff system, all the 
German states except Austria, and by this economic unity 
paved the way to political consolidation. 

This was the situation when the news of the revolution 
in Paris reached Germany. A really significant movement 
would have to be initiated in the great states, Austria and 
Prussia, but as these remained quiet, the outbreaks in Ger- 
many never acquired more than a local character. In a 
number of the absolute states of North Germany — Hesse- 
Cassel, Brunswick, Saxony, Hanover — there were risings 



1 This is the time wflen the street-boys sang Heine's rhyme: "Bund, Du 
Hund, bist nicht gesund." 



And the Revolution of 1830 435 

which were quickly disposed of by the grant of representa- 
tive government. Phlegmatic Germany, unused to the 
exercise of political rights, had not acquired the revolution- 
ary habit, and the sole result of the year 1830 was the estab- 
lishment of constitutionalism in the small states. In Austria 
and Prussia the absolute system as yet survived, though it 
was clear as daylight that the peoples of these states, too, 
would before long be seized by the liberal current of the 
time. 

It deserves special notice that the German movement of The German 
1830 was not only scattered and local, but exclusively liberal ^^uberal, 
in tendency, and that no cry was raised for a more effective not natlonal - 
national organization. The Bund, with its Diet of princely 
delegates sitting at Frankfort, remained as feeble and des- 
pised as ever. Evidently it took the national movement a 
long time to gather force, for it was plain that German sen- 
timent, once aroused, would first and without delay shatter 
this travesty of a national senate. The conclusion to be de- 
rived from the events of the year 1830 is that the liberal 
movement in Germany was more developed than the 
national one, but that both alike were hardly out of their 
s waddling clothes. 

But if the year 1830 saw hardly more than storm-signals Alexander 
in Germany, there was a fierce tempest to the east of her, in kingdom oi 
Poland. We have seen that at the Congress of Vienna the Poland - 
Czar Alexander, to whom had been assigned the grand- 
duchy of Warsaw, converted it into the kingdom of Poland 
with himself as king. At the same time he gave it a consti- 
tution, by which it acquired independence from Russia, a 
Diet to manage its own affairs, together with a Polish admin- 
istration and a Polish army. That this was an act of un- 
usual magnanimity cannot be denied, but it did not satisfy 
the Polish nation. The Poles chafed under the few remain- 
ing restrictions and could not forget the time when the 



436 The Bourbon Restoration 

parts were reversed, and they, and not Russia, ruled eastern 
Europe. 
The Poles The discontent was kept under control while Alexander 

November, ' lived, but Nicholas I. had no sooner succeeded his brother 
l8 3°- ( x 825) than the signs of conflict multiplied. The excitement 

caused by the July revolution applied the torch to the ac- 
cumulated discontent, and in November, 1830, the capital, 
Warsaw, rose in insurrection. The country took the cue 
from the metropolis, the few Russian troops retired with all 
possible speed, and not without surprise at the ease of the 
achievement, the Poles discovered that they were free under 
a government of their own. 
Reasons for the Plainly, the success of the movement depended on united, 
intelligent action. But that was hard to obtain, owing to 
the impatience and caprice which lay in the national char- 
acter, and to the lamentable social divisions. For one thing 
the landed proprietors, being great nobles, found it difficult 
to agree with the democratic element in the city of Warsaw, 
and second, the bulk of the nation were agricultural labor- 
ers, in a condition little above that of brutes. Serfs for cen- 
turies, they had indeed been declared free by Napoleon 
(1807); but as nothing was done to convert them into peas- 
ant-proprietors, they lived from hand to mouth and were 
worse off than before. Nevertheless, recruits flocked to the 
standards, and with next to no training and a very deficient 
equipment the Poles sustained a most honorable combat, 
when in the spring of 1831 Czar Nicholas launched his 
Russian legions against them. But mere valor was of 
no avail; at Ostrolenka (May, 1831) the Russians over- 
whelmed the Poles with their numbers, and a few months 
later (September) entered Warsaw in triumph. Thus the 
seal of fate was set upon the finis Polonia pronounced in 
the previous century. 
When the Russian autocrat again took hold, it was with the 



And the Revolution of 1830 437 

grim resolve to remove all chances of another Polish revo- Poland crushed 
lution. He firmly believed that he had been trifled with a utocracy? Sian 
because he and his predecessor had proved themselves too 
kind. He would not err in that way any more. He began 
by abrogating Alexander's constitution and merging Poland 
with Russia as a Russian province. Then he carried through 
a succession of measures which aimed to break the rebel- 
lious spirit of the Poles: a Russian army of occupation was 
saddled on the country; Russian was made the official lan- 
guage; the press was put under supervision; and most of the 
educational institutions were closed. Poland fell into a sad 
eclipse. Bound and gagged she lay at the feet of Russia, 
but as long as there was life her people were determined to 
cling to their national memories. And they have, with 
notable consequences, clung to them to this day. 

Reviewing the effects of the revolution of 1830 throughout Results of the 
Europe, we may assert that though its fruits, outside of jg 30# 
France and Belgium, were small, a new era had struggled 
into being. The liberal platform, inspired by the faith that 
nntjnnnjify firimild bf mpertprl and that political control 
"Belongs not to the monarchs but to the peoples, had directed-- ^_^ 
universal attention to itself and could never again be treated 
as a trifle. The best the old reactionaries like Metternich 
could do from now on was to delay the coming of the 
dawn; they could not bring back the chains and darkness of 
the period of congresses and intervention. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE GOVERNMENT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE (1830-48) AND THE 
REVOLUTION OF 1848 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe, Chapter XVI., pp. 
641-44; Chapter XVIII., pp. 699-706; Phillips, Mod- 
ern Europe, Chapter XL, pp. 256-72; Seignobos, 
Europe Since 1814, Chapter V., pp. 134-52; Chapter 
VI., pp. 155-65; Andrews, Modern Europe, Chapters 
VII.-VIII. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., Chapter 
XL. (Overthrow of Louis Philippe) ; Anderson, Con- 
stitutions and Documents, Nos. 106-10. 

Louis Philippe We have seen that Louis Philippe, called to the throne 
oVthem^ddle by the revolution of July, was by the nature of the case 
class. obliged to found his power upon the monarchical section 

of the people, the middle class. It was unfortunate that 
the revolution had not been made by this class, but by 
republican workingmen, who ever afterward felt that they 
had been cheated of their labor, and immediately drifted into 
an embittered opposition. Thus Louis Philippe became, 
whether he would or no, the head, not of the nation, but of 
one of its social divisions, and this is the really significant 
feature of his reign. The name citizen-king describes not 
only his position, but also his character. He abandoned the 
traditional royal pomp, exhibited an easy good-fellowship, 
lived simply with his numerous family, and at every crisis 
fell back on his native thrift and obstinacy, characteristic 
qualities which he shared with his middle-class supporters. 

4.38 



The Revolution of 184.8 439 

The monarchy of the bourgeoisie never had a day of Legitimists, 
absolute security. Its two most persistent enemies were sociaLsts anS ' 
the legitimists and the republicans. The legitimists, de- 
voted to the elder Bourbon branch, were constantly stirring 
up opposition, but apart from one outbreak in that home of 
troubles, the Vendee, were content with a latent hostility. 
In the Vendee, the duchess of Berri, mother of the young 
Bourbon claimant, Henry V., courageously led a movement 
(1832) which appealed to the imagination, but also, from 
its failure to arouse the masses, served to show that the 
legitimist cause was moribund. Far more serious was the 
republican opposition. The leaders, young enthusiasts, 
appealed to the working-class, and the working-class, as it 
happened, were just then a growing section of the nation. 
For the industrial revolution, the product of science and 
machinery, had set in, and everywhere factory-quarters 
arose with a new population, housed amid soot and 
squalor. At first the republicans strove to organize the 
workingmen for a purely political revolution, but many of 
the leaders presently made up their minds that a social 
revolution, having as its object the improvement of the con- 
ditions of the wage-earners, was more to the point. Ac- 
cordingly, they drifted into socialism. In France and under 
Louis Philippe this movement, which has since travelled 
round the world, took its start. With Louis Philippe in 
power the old republicans and their offshoot, the socialists, 
saw no reason to divide their forces, but kept up a united 
and violent opposition. In the first part of his reign they 
appealed several times to arms (1832 and 1834), but having 
been suppressed with bloody consequences, they settled 
down to a quiet propaganda until their hour should strike. 

Though from the social point of view the growth of the TheParlia- 
_wage-earners and the secret ferment among them is the 
most interesting feature of Louis Philippe's reign, the con- 



440 The Government of Louis Philippe 



Thiers agitates 
for a more 
liberal suf- 
frage. 



scious political life of that generation was hardly affected 
by it. We have noticed that the government never enjoyed 
the favor of the legitimists and the republicans, but after 
their early attempts these parties recognized their weak- 
ness and desisted from violence. Without doubt their con- 
tinued existence implied danger, but, discouraged by fail- 
ure, they abandoned the stage and left it to the middle class. 
This class, therefore, ruled, and if its members had been 
united might have held the reins for a long time. But 
perpetual union in a great body of thinking men is an im- 
possibility, and the deputies in the" Chamber soon split over 
the question of Parliamentary government. One section, led 
by Guizot, the historian, believed that the king should choose 
his ministers as he pleased; another, led by Thiers, also an 
historian and famous as the panegyrist of the Empire, 
maintained that he must take them from the majority and 
carry through their policy. In the one view the king was 
a free agent, in the other merely the mouthpiece of the 
Parliament and ministry, as in England. In this conflict, 
waged entirely among his supporters of the bourgeoisie, 
Louis Philippe seemed to occupy a neutral position, but 
secretly inclined to Guizot, and by adroit management 
secured to that leader, and incidentally to himself, a 
majority in the Chamber and the unquestioned control of 
the government. In 1840 Guizot came into power, and in 
spite of Thiers and every other form of opposition, held it 
till the monarchy fell. 

This maintenance of power looked like a capital achieve- 
ment, but unfortunately, as the result proved, paved the 
way for revolution. For Guizot and the king, who were 
hand and glove, not only maintained their Parliamentary 
majority by freely bribing the electorate and the deputies, 
but took the ultra-conservative stand of refusing to listen 
to suggestions of change and progress. Now Thiers, though 



And the Revolution of 184.8 441 

a monarchist, made up his mind that the beginning of all 
improvement was the enlargement of the body of electors 
by lowering the tax-paying qualification, and the agitation 
which he inaugurated over this question was like the little 
stone in Nebuchadnezzar's dream which shattered the clay 
feet of the image of brass and brought it to earth. 

The method chosen for the electoral agitation was a series The revolution 
of banquets, at which reform was demanded by the speakers. 1848. ruary ' 
All through the year 1847 these banquets were in progress, 
and one, which was to be made a great occasion, with a 
procession and delegations of students, was set at Paris for 
February 22, 1848. The government, taking alarm, for- 
bade the meeting, but crowds gathered nevertheless and 
began to demonstrate on their own account. The next day 
the riot grew so serious, coupled with so general a demand 
for reform, that the king yielded and dismissed Guizot. 
This was as much as Thiers intended, but popular passions 
had been aroused, and by February 24th had swelled to such 
a pitch that they burst all bounds. The morning of that 
day began with an assault upon the Tuileries by the repub- 
lican masses, whose savage determination frightened the 
timid king into resigning in favor of his little grandson. 
While the sovereign himself sought safety in flight, the 
duchess of Orleans led her son, the count of Paris, to the 
Chamber of Deputies and had him proclaimed king. But The republic 
it was already too late. The republican multitude invaded ls P ro ' 
the hall, ignored the deputies, and set up a provisional 
government. Owing to the fact that the socialistic repub- 
licans had helped in the street-fighting, some of their leaders 
were associated with the government, and the two united 
factions began their rule by announcing to the world that 
France was henceforth a republic. 

But at this point harmony ceased, for the two republican Republicans 
parties stood for entirely different ideals. The old repub- socialists. 



44 2 The Government of Louis Philippe 



The socialists 
overthrown. 



The national 
work-shops. 



licans wanted merely a political revolution after the mannei 
of 1793, but the new school of socialists was content with 
nothing less than complete industrial reorganization. The 
clash began immediately, the advantage resting at first with 
the socialists. By means of demonstrations on the part of 
the workingmen they forced the provisional ministry to pro- 
claim that the state "undertakes to provide labor for all 
citizens," and to establish, as a means of fulfilling this 
promise, so-called "national workshops." That ended 
the socialistic triumph, for when in April the general elec- 
tions for an Assembly, called upon to give France a con- 
stitution, took place, the country, placed between republi- 
cans and socialists, showed its horror of the unfamiliar 
tenets of the new school by returning an immense repub- 
lican majority. At the opening of the Assembly the mixed 
provisional government resigned and the republicans took 
hold in earnest. The socialists no sooner noted the change 
than they took alarm, and by two insurrections (May and 
June) attempted to retrieve their fortunes. Their last 
rising, which lasted four days (June 23d-26th), led to the 
severest battle which Paris, familiar for ages with street- 
fighting, had ever witnessed. Certainly only men moved by 
courage and conviction could stand up, as these social re- 
formers did, against cannon and musketry fire, but they 
were overborne, their leaders killed or exiled, and the party . 
shattered for many a day. 

The great rising of June was not only a general protest 
against the republican majority, but was undertaken for the 
specific purpose of saving the "national workshops," which 
the republicans were preparing to close, and which, after 
their victory, they suppressed summarily. This socialist ex- 
periment has invited a good deal of attention on the ground 
that it tested the theory that iniLu^trial.. enterprises... can be 
profitably nationalized; that is, put under the control of the 



And the Revolution of 184.8 443 

state. But the French experiment was a test only in name; 
for the government, having no sympathy with the socialist 
programme, instead of establishing workshops, merely set 
the unemployed to digging at the fortifications of Paris. 
That this accomplished nothing, as the republicans averred, 
but the embarrassment of the treasury, is true; but it is 
also true, as the socialists asserted, that the failure of the 
experiment in this absurd form did not dispose of their 
theory. 

The inference from the savage struggle of the spring of Therepubii- 
1848 was that France, although a republic, was not ready tionof 1848. 
to indulge in hazardous experiments. With their enemies 
overthrown, the republican majority of the Assembly pro- 
ceeded to fulfil its mission of giving France a constitution. 
Insisting on the democratic principle that "all public powers 
emanate from the people," it vested the legislative power in 
a single Assembly of 750 members elected by universal suf- 
frage, and the executive power in a citizen, elected as presi- 
dent for four years. As to the manner of the president's 
election, it was agreed, after much discussion, that he, too, 
was to be chosen directly by the people. The election fol- 
lowed on December 10, 1848, and to the surprise of all un- 
acquainted with the heart of the French people the choice 
fell, not upon General Cavaignac, the leader of the republi- 
cans and the hero of the battles of June, but upon Louis 
Napoleon. 

That this prince should ever be called to the head of the Career of the 
nation by universal suffrage would never have been dreamed n ' w presi en 
by any one who had followed his career. He was the son 
of Napoleon's brother Louis, king of Holland, and after the 
death of Napoleon's only son at Vienna (1832) was regarded 
as chief of the House of Bonaparte. As such he felt it his 
duty to conspire for his dynasty, and made two attempts in 
ludicrous imitation of Napoleon's return from Elba, which 



4 /j/) The Government of Louis Philippe 

were greeted by Europe with an outburst of Homeric laugh- 
ter. In 1836 he suddenly appeared in Strasburg, but in spite 
of his uncle's hat, sword, and boots, donned for the occasion, 
was marched off to prison. Undaunted, he made another 
attempt to rouse France in 1840 by appearing at Boulogne; 
but the boat conveying him and a few helpmates capsized, 
and wet and dripping he was fished out of the Channel by 
the ubiquitous police. For this second escapade he was 
condemned to imprisonment, but in 1846 made his escape 
to England. On the proclamation of the republic he became 
a candidate for the Assembly and was repeatedly returned by 
the electors. Plainly, he was outliving the ridicule he had 
aroused, and by his clever trading upon the magic name 
Napoleon was rallying about him all those classes, especially 
the peasants, who clung to the traditions of the empire. The 
election to the presidency of the republic was an honor ad- 
dressed to the dead warrior rather than to his puny repre- 
sentative, but it furnished an ominous sign that the love of 
republican institutions was not very deeply rooted in the 
French conscience. Sincere republicans gazed at each other 
with consternation, and were assailed by the suspicion that 
the days of the new republic were numbered. How well- 
founded this fear was we shall presently see. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE REVOLUTION OF 1 848 IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND ITALY 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe; Phillips, Modern 
Europe, Chapters XII.-XIIL; Seignobos, Europe 
Since 1814, Chapter XI., pp. 335-48; Chapter XII., 
pp. 389-99; Chapter XIIL, pp. 401-23; Andrews, 
Modern Europe, Chapters IX.-X.; Thayer, Dawn of 
Italian Independence, Vol. II., Books 4-5; Bolton 
King, History of Italian Unity (1814-71), Vol. I., Part 
II., Chapters IX.-XIIL; Henderson, Short History of 
Germany, Vol. II., Chapter VIII. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., Chapter 
XL., Section 2. 

As we have seen, the revolution of 1830 produced no Therevolu- 
great changes in central Europe because the liberal and ^^^f^ s ts it- 
national sentiment had not yet become organized and power- ^ ln centra 
ful. Hence, the succeeding period had been one of con- 
tinued reaction, relieved, however, by signs that the masses 
were becoming conscious of their servitude and ready to 
shake off the shackles of absolutism. Again the events at 
Paris served as a signal fire. A wave of jubilation passed 
over all the peoples from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, 
and they arose and declared for a free government and a 
national state. France once again vindicated her claim to 
be regarded as leader of Europe, but it is a fact that, even 
without her example, Italy, Austria, and Germany would 
not have supported the rule of repression much longer. 

Metternich's own capital, the very hearthstone of the Revolution at 
spirit of reaction, was one of the first to feel the breath of March,' 184S. 
the new freedom. On March 13, 1848, Vienna rose and 

445 



446 



The Revolution of 184.8 



Revolution at 
Berlin 



The revolu- 
tion is national 
as well as 
liberal. 



drove the aging prince, who more than any man was re- 
sponsible for the narrow conservatism of the first half of the 
century, from the chancellery of the Austrian empire and 
from the capital. With him the whole system he had so elab- 
orately built up collapsed at once, absolutism was, renounced, 
and the feeble Emperor Ferdinand, frightened by the tumult 
in the streets, speedily promised a constitution and a Par- 
liament. A new era seemed to dawn upon the realm of the 
Hapsburgs. 

The news of the fall of Metternich caused exultation 
throughout Germany, on which his hand had rested with no 
less heaviness than on Italy. Riots broke out in many of the 
small capitals of the Bund, and on March 18th Berlin followed 
the example of Vienna and rose to protest against the auto- 
cratic system. In view of Prussia's indifference to the rev- 
olution of 1830 this result was surprising. But the last dec- 
ade had been preparing changes. The old king of the Wars 
of Liberation had been succeeded in 1840 by his son, Fred- 
erick William IV., and the generation which stood about 
the latter's throne was no longer satisfied with mere admin- 
istrative efficiency, but demanded a share in legislation. 
Frederick William, in spite of his belief in Divine Right, had, 
as early as 1847, yielded so far as to call to Berlin a meeting 
of provincial delegates (the United Diet), sufficient proof 
that the movement of 1848 was more than a sudden popular 
caprice. As a result of the March days, which did not pass 
without the spilling of blood, the king withdrew his troops 
from the capital and promised to call a Parliament. 

Thus all Germany was in the very first days of the new 
revolution converted to constitutionalism. But there was 
an equally potent desire among the people for an effective 
German union. Resolved to strike the iron while it was hot, 
the liberal leaders of various German states met, calmly 
shelved the Bund, and issued a call for a German Parliament, 



In Germany, Austria, and Italy 447 

to be elected by universal suffrage and endowed with full 
authority to create a supreme federal government. 

The German Parliament, morally and intellectually a very A national 
distinguished body of men, met in May, 1848, at Frankfort- Frankfort. 
on-the-Main. It had a sincere desire to establish German 
unity; it had the learning necessary to solve all knotty con- 
stitutional problems; but it suffered from one fatal defect: 
it had no army, no body of administrative officials ; in a word, 
no power. In the first weeks of revolutionary excitement 
that defect might be supplied by an irresistible public opin- 
ion; but if opinion weakened and the state governments, 
panic-stricken for the present by the revolutionary move- 
ment, recovered breath and courage — what then? The 
Bund had been established expressly to guarantee the sov- 
ereignty of the thirty-eight states, which would certainly not 
yield their dearest possession with composure. Austria and 
Prussia, in particular, proud of their traditions as great 
powers, could hardly be expected to bow weakly to the 
Democratic and revolutionary body sitting at Frankfort. 
Sooner or later one or the other or both would follow an 
independent policy, and the clash, testing the question of 
supremacy, would be at hand. 

The clash came over the Schleswig-Holstem complica- The Schleswig 
tion. This is one of the most confused questions of history, difficulty, 
the veritable nightmare of European diplomacy for a whole 
generation. The two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein 
occupy the southern half of the peninsula of Jutland, and 
are inhabited, except for the northern rim of Schleswig, 
which is Danish, by a German population. The king of 
Denmark was also duke of Schleswig and Holstein, but the 
two duchies were otherwise independent, having each its 
own laws and its own administration ; and this independence, 
chiefly because of the difference in race, the duchies were 
very anxious to preserve. The test came through the ques- 



448 



The Revolution of 184.8 



tion of succession. The royal House at Copenhagen, about 
to die out in the male line, was in a quandary. The Danjsh 
law permitted the crown to pass to the female line, while the 
Schleswig-Holstein law, at least in the view of the German 
population, recognized only male succession. With separa- 
tion staring him in the face, the Danish king declared in 
1846 that he would under all circumstances maintain the 
unity of his monarchy. Great excitement prevailed at this 
announcement, and taking advantage in 1848 of the general 
disturbance of Europe, the Schleswig-Holsteiners, eager to 
be independent, rose in revolt. 

At this point the Parliament of Frankfort stepped in. Al- 
though determined to help the German brethren of the 
duchies, it was hampered by the fact that it had no armed 
force. Accordingly, it was obliged to put the destiny of its 
•proteges in the hands of Prussia. The Prussians, entering 
Schleswig-Holstein, presently drove back the Danes, but the 
latter retaliated by seizing the Prussian merchant vessels in 
the Baltic. This fact, coupled with the interference of Rus- 
sia and England, determined Frederick William to sign a 
truce with Denmark (August 26th), by which he practically 
delivered the duchies into the hands of the Danes. This 
action, branded as treason by the orators of the Parliament, 
roused great indignation. After a hot debate the Prussian 
armistice was reluctantly indorsed, because the Assembly 
had no army to enforce its opposition; but this yielding 
to Prussia furnished to the world the proof of the pow- 
erlessness of the Parliament over the states which it pro- 
fessed to control. After the armistice had been accepted, 
the members returned to the constitutional labors for which 
they had been summoned, where we shall leave them for the 
present while we look into the affairs of Austria and Italy. 

The Austrian empire was as crazy a patchwork as has 
ever been pieced together by fortune and state-craft. Ger- 



In Germany, Austria, and Italy 449 

mans in the west, Hungarians in the east, Italians in the 
south, and Slavs almost everywhere were expected to live 
together as brethren in a common household. A certain de- 
gree of harmony was maintained while the emperor at Vienna 
was undisputed lord and master; but as soon as the March 
revolution destroyed his autocracy, the component races 
flew apart with violent centrifugal action. In a few weeks 
the Italians at Milan and Venice drove out the Austrian 
troops, the Hungarians raised the banner of revolt, the Slavs 
of Bohemia, called Czechs, planned to follow their example, 
and to the casual view the proud empire seemed a thing of 
the past. Let us follow these insurrections in their leading 
centres. 

In Italy the fall of Metternich was no sooner reported than The Italian 
the people of Lombardy and Venice, long restive under his SponAustrU. 
lash, rose, fell upon the troops, and declared for indepen- 
dence. The Austrian army, yielding for the moment, re- 
tired in good order under its general, Radetzky, to a chain 
of impregnable fortifications prepared~T!or > '"7Ust such an 
occasion, and known as the Quadrilateral. A provisional 
government at Milan appealed to all Italy for help, and es- 
pecially to Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, the most pow- 
erful and most patriotic of the local princes. For the 
moment the national movement was irresistible, and all 
the more important rulers, the grand-duke of Tuscany, the 
king of Naples, and even the Pope, sent contingents to fight 
side by side with the Sardinians for the liberation of the 
northern provinces. It was Italy's first great national war; 
its purpose the expulsion of the foreigner. 

In this heroic enterprise, originating in the spontaneous Austria defeats 
action of the people, there was one fatal defect. Among the i ta i y . 
motley Italian forces the Sardinian army was the only effi- 
cient body, and its numbers were too small to resist the 
Austrian legions. When the clash came at Custozza, on 



45o 



The Revolution of 184.8 



The revolution 
in Naples. 



The revolution 
at Rome. 



July 25th, the veteran Radetzky inflicted a decisive defeat on 
the king of Sardinia, reconquered Lombardy, and obliged 
Charles Albert to sue for a truce. When at the expiration 
of the truce the war was renewed, the Austrians won another 
great victory at Novara (March, 1849), and the struggle was 
over. Sick at heart the defeated Charles Albert abdicated, 
and his successor, Victor Emmanuel, made haste to sign a 
treaty with Austria by which he retired from the war and 
received back his undiminished realm. That left the Aus- 
trians face to face with their two revolted provinces of 
Lombardy and Venetia. Milan, the capital of Lombardy, 
being already in their hands, siege was now laid to Venice 
and the city obliged, after a splendid defence, to capitulate. 

Though the struggle in the north against Austria is the 
climax of the Italian revolution, the rest of the peninsula 
shared in the aspirations and delusions of that year of tur- 
moil. While the revolutionary movement was at its height, 
the Pope, the grand-duke of Tuscany, the king of Naples, 
and the lesser princes had made every conceivable conces- 
sion to the liberals; but as soon as the tide receded, they 
hurried to return to the absolute regime. The king of Na- 
ples was the first to forget his promises. A despot without 
a scruple, or, rather, a vaudeville sovereign in real life, he 
overthrew the constitutional system, first in Naples proper, 
and afterward in Sicily. A reaction worse than that im- 
posed by the Austrians on Lombardy, because its author was 
more despicable, fastened upon the fair provinces of the 
south. Far more memorable was the march of the revolu- 
tion in the central section, in the States of the Church, gov- 
erned at this time by Pius IX. In fact, the movement here 
throws a profound searchlight into Italian history. 

Pius IX., elected to the papacy in 1846, was a kind and 
affable man, with a reputation for liberalism which he owed 
chiefly to an occasional good-natured word for it. He 



In Germany, Austria, and Italy 451 

sympathized also, to a certain extent, with the Italian 
national movement, and when Lombardy revolted against 
Austria, began by approving the action. But as soon as he 
became aware of the consequences, he called a halt. To 
send troops against Austria meant a declaration of war 
against that power and the adoption of a policy hardly 
consistent with his position as Pope. He found himself 
in a dilemma, the inevitable consequence of his twofold 
character, for as Pope and successor of the Prince of Peace 
he had spiritual obligations toward the whole Catholic 
world; and as lord of an Italian territory he had definite 
temporal interests, the commanding one just now being 
to join with the nation against the foreign conqueror. 
When he saw himself obliged to choose between his obliga- 
tions to Catholicism and those to his state, he naturally pre- 
ferred the greater to the lesser, and to the immense indig- 
nation of his people withdrew from the Austrian war. The 
incident proved that a Pope, occupying an international po- 
sition, could never follow exclusive national ends, and the 
lesson sunk deep into Italian hearts. The immediate con- 
sequence was a revolution. A strong republican faction The Roma* 
pronounced against Pius as a traitor to Italy; and when, repu 
alarmed at the situation, he sought refuge (November 24, 
1848) with his friend, the king of Naples, the liberals took 
affairs into their own hands and erected the papal dominion 
into a republic. The leading spirit of the new government 
was Mazzini, a pioneer of Italian unity and a tireless con- 
spirator against the selfish reigning houses of his unhappy 
country. 

The Roman republic never had more than a fighting Napoleon over- 
chance to live. Catholic peoples the world over were hor- Roman re- 
rified at the dispossession of the Holy Father, and made P ubhc - 
ready to interfere. Louis Napoleon, just elected president 
of the French republic, was especially delighted at the op- 



452 The Revolution of 184.8 

portunity offered to curry favor with the Catholic clergy and. 

peasantry of France; heedless of the fact that he was pitting 
republic against republic, he sent an army to Rome to 
sweep Mazzini and his followers out of the city. General 
Garibaldi, who had been created commander-in-chief, made 
a gallant fight, but had to give way to numbers, and in July. 
1849, the French entered the conquered city. When the 
disillusioned Pope returned to his capital, he was cured of 
every predilection for reform, and reestablished the hateful 
clerical administration with all its time-worn abuses. 

Thus closed the revolutionary war for Italy with a harvest 
of disappointments. Affairs relapsed to their former state; 
the brave effort had been apparently in vain. But one fact 
had been brought home to Italians, which was that they had 
in the king of Sardinia the one faithful ruler of the land, and 
in his army the one hope of redemption. Charles Albert 
had stood by the cause till his overthrow, and Victor Em- 
manuel, in spite of bribes and threats from Austria, refused 
to become a reactionary and to withdraw the constitution 
granted to Piedmont in 1848. Such conduct aroused a 
love and admiration which drew the eyes of all Italy toward 
the House of Savoy. 

While Austria was successfully reducing the Italians, she 
had her hands full with revolutions in every other part of her 
dominions. We have noted that the rising of the Germans 
at Vienna was the signal for similar risings among the Ital- 
ians, Hungarians, and Czechs, not to mention a number of 
smaller nationalities. With confusion reigning at the capi- 
tal and the emperor no better than an imbecile, it is certain 
that the state would have been lost, had it not been for the 
army. Its powerful discipline held it together, in spite of 
the general chaos; in Italy it had just proved its metal. Its 
leaders were of course eager to apply Radetzky's remedy of 
the sword to all the other rebels, and soon showed how diffi- 



In Germany, Austria, and ltdty 453 

cult it is for a mere mob to stand up against professional 
soldiers. In June, 1848, Windischgraetz, commanding in 
Bohemia, disposed without much difficulty of the rebellious 
Czechs, and encouraged by his success marched shortly after 
upon the Germans at Vienna. There the inhabitants made 
a courageous stand, and it was not till October that the army 
stormed the gates and forced its way into the city. With 
Czechs and Germans once more under the rule of the bay- 
onet, and the Italians delivered to the bloody mercies of 
Radetzky, there remained only the Hungarian revolt to crush 
for Austria to be her accustomed self again. 

But the Hungarian revolt turned out to be the toughest Therevolu- 
task that the imperial army undertook, probably because gary- 
the Hungarians were the most tenacious of the subjects of 
the emperor, and in any case the best organized. The king- 
dom of Hungary was one of the many possessions of the 
Hapsburg crown. It had an ancient constitution, which 
the rulers of the past had frequently violated, but latterly a 
patriotic party had insisted more and more stoutly on its 
being put in force. The year 1848 brought a complete tri- 
umph. The frightened government at Vienna servilely 
yielded everything that the Hungarians asked, until the 
successes against the Italians, Czechs, and Germans en- 
couraged it to stiffen its back. From verbal disputes the 
Austrian Government presently proceeded to war, and in 
December, 1848, the hitherto victorious Windischgraetz in- 
vaded Hungary. The defence which followed constitutes 
a splendid tribute to the spirit of the little nation. The 
Hungarians, under their energetic general, Gorgei, succeeded < 
in driving the Austrians back upon Vienna, and elated by 
their success declared the House of Hapsburg deposed. The Kossuth, 
step was taken under the influence of Louis Kossuth, a re- 
publican, who had made himself practically dictator. The 
measure was of doubtful wisdom, for it drove the Viennese 



454 



The Revohition of 184.8 



Return to the 
policy of re- 
pression. 



Reaction in 
Germany. 



Prussia gets a 

constitution, 

1849. 



court to desperation, and induced it to appeal to Czar 
Nicholas for aid. This Czar, the last true supporter of 
the principle of intervention as laid down in the era of 
congresses, responded with alacrity, and presently a Russian 
army took the Hungarians in the flank. The rebels, caught 
between two fires, made a good fight; but by August, 1849; 
all was over, the leaders of the late revolution killed or 
scattered, and Austrian rule once more supreme. 

Thus Austria had come out of her terrible crisis apparently 
unscathed. The victorious court, alarmed by the liberal and 
racial movements of the past year, now concluded that the 
only way to save the state was to put all the nationalities on 
a basis of equality, and subject all alike to a common army 
and a common administration. As the Emperor Ferdinand 
had made too many personal pledges, he was induced to 
abdicate and was succeeded by his young nephew, Francis 
Joseph. 

On turning back now to Germany, we are immediately 
struck by the fact that the progress of reaction in Austria 
greatly encouraged the conservative elements among the 
German states. The king of Prussia, who had yielded to 
circumstances but was still an unconverted absolutist, re- 
solved to treat Berlin as Windischgraetz had served Vienna. 
Troops suddenly took possession of the capital, and the Prus- 
sian Diet, which was making a constitution for the state, 
was prorogued to another city and there dissolved (Novem- 
ber 7th). Frederick William might have returned to the old 
absolutism, but deterred by certain scruples, which redound 
to his honor, resolved to give his subjects a constitution of his 
own making. This instrument did not meet all of the lib- 
eral demands, but it guaranteed to the people a share in the 
legislation, and was evidence that in Prussia, almost alone 
in central Europe, the revolution of 1848 had not been en- 
tirely in vain. 



In Germany, Austria, and Italy 455 

The next body to feel the reaction was the German Par- The German 
liament at Frankfort. We left it at the time of its discom- co^ptoleTits 
fiture in the Schleswig-Holstein matter, when the proof of its constitution, 
weakness had been furnished by its inability to control the 
policy of Prussia. Since then it had proceeded, in spite of 
gathering clouds, with its work of uniting all Germany by 
a constitution. The greatest barrier in its path was Aus- 
tria. As this state, a mixture of all nationalities, would cut 
a strange figure in a German national state, it was finally 
resolved to exclude it from the proposed union. A related 
difficulty, the headship of Germany, therewith practically 
solved itself. Not without violent discussion, it was decided 
that the chief executive should be a hereditary emperor, 
and that the post should be offered to the king of Prussia. 
In April, 1849, a deputation from the Parliament travelled 
to Berlin to offer the crown of united Germany to Frederick 
William. 

Their answer was a refusal. Frederick William was too The king of 
deeply penetrated with the ideas of Divine Right to have the proffered 
any sympathy for a popular and democratic honor, he was crown - 
convinced that the constitution was unworkable, and — he 
was afraid of Austria. Austria was just recovering her en- 
ergy and notified Berlin, in no uncertain language, that the 
acceptance of the imperial office by a Hohenzollern would 
never be suffered by the House of Hapsburg. Frederick 
William was a well-meaning man of mystical, confused ideas, 
and, like all waverers, ended by yielding to pressure. The 
committee of the Parliament went back to Frankfort, re- 
ported its failure, and that body, not without a small flurry 
of revolt, recognized that its work was ended and retired 
from the scene. 

Frederick William, who, in spite of his refusal of the The king of 
crown, felt that he was pledged to do something for his persuade the 
nation, now tried to persuade the German governments to fo^te? 61 ^ 



456 



The Revolution of i 



negotiate among themselves about the bases of a new union. 
His thought was that since the people had failed, the princes 
should try in their turn. But Austria, which had learned 
by this time that any form of German union would be in- 
jurious to her, threw her whole influence against this scheme 
as well. Finally, she proposed to reconstitute the old 
Bund, the great attraction of which was that it left the sov- 
ereignty of the princes intact and reduced the power of Prus- 
sia to nothing. The Bund had fallen like a house of cards 
in 1848, but Austria set it up once more and invited every- 
body to enter and complete the happy family. The princes, 
selfishly mindful only of their independence, deserted Fred- 
erick William and gathered around the Austrian standard. 
The king of Prussia presently found himself alone; and 
when Austria, aware that she was dealing with a timid man, 
haughtily ordered him to give up every idea of a closer union 
and be satisfied with the Bund, he yielded without a struggle 
(Treaty of Olmutz, November, 1850). The old Bund — that 
was the ridiculous issue of the two years' labor of the nation. 
Germany seemed not to be worthy of a better form of union. 

In this general collapse of German hopes and illusions the 
Schleswig-Holsteiners, who had rebelled against the king 
of Denmark, could not escape disaster. Abandoned by 
Prussia in August, 1848, they had several times returned to 
the fray, but were crushed definitely in 1850. A conference 
of powers met at London to consider their case and decided 
the succession question against them. It was agreed (Pro- 
tocol of 1852) to designate Prince Christian of Gliicksburg 
as heir of the Danish monarchy and of the duchies as well. 
In spite of their protests the duchies were now subjected to 
Denmark and their case adjourned till they had summoned 
strength to rise once more against their masters. 

With the German Parliament banished to the shades, 
the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein redelivered to the 



In Germany, Austria, and Italy 457 

Danes, the Bund reconstituted at Frankfort, and Austria 
restored under an absolute sovereign, the Metternichian 
system with all its attendant miseries had been given a new- 
lease of life. Patriots and liberals were filled with despair. 
But as no evil is without some grain of good, the confusion 
of the revolution had shown two. thjjjgs: it had p hnwn thmt 
the greatest enemy to German unity was the Austrian court, 
and" that salvation, if it ever came, would have to come from 
Prussia. Prussia's prestige, it is true, was, afteFher many 
failures, lamentably low. But something remained: it was 
not forgotten that the national hopes had once enthusias- 
tically turned to her; and by her adoption of a constitution 
she had divorced herself definitely from mediaeval forms and 
planted her feet in the present. 



CHAPTER XXI 



Louis Napo- 
leon favors the 
monarchical 
elements. 



FRANCE UNDER NAPOLEON III AND THE UNIFICATION 
OF ITALY 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe, Chapter XX., pp. 
809-23; Chapters XXI.-XXIL; Phillips, Modern 
Europe, Chapters XIV.-XV.; Seignobos, Europe Since 
1814, Chapter VI., pp. 166-76; Chapter XL, pp. 346- 
61; Andrews, Modern Europe, Vol. II., Chapters 
I.-IIL; Bolton King, History of Italian Unity, 
Vol. II. ; Stillman, The Union of Italy; Cesaresco, 
Cavour; Mazade, Cavour. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., Chapter 
XL. (Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat, Garibaldi, Victor 
Emmanuel, etc.); Anderson, Constitutions and Docu- 
ments; Garibaldi, Autobiography,- 3 vols.; Mazzini, 
Life and Writings, 6 vols. 

The indication furnished by the choice of Louis Napoleon 
as president, that France did not really want a republic, was 
converted into positive proof by the elections of May, 1849, 
to the Legislative Assembly. The country returned an im- 
mense monarchical majority, and the only reason the repurP" 
lie was not immediately overthrown lay in the circumstance 
that the monarchists were divided into three groups: legit- 
imists, favoring the elder Bourbon line; Orleanists, devoted 
to the family of Louis Philippe, and a rising Bonapartist 
faction, supporting the president. Louis Napoleon, while 
doing his best to strengthen his personal supporters, encour- 
aged a combination of all the monarchists to crush the re- 
publicans. The Assembly soon showed its hand in a suc- 

458 



The Unification of Italy 459 

cession of conservative measures of which the crowning one 
was the limitation (1850) of universal suffrage, perhaps the 
greatest achievement of the late revolution. An even Jess 
defensible measure — already referred to in the previous 
chapter — had been adopted in the spring of 1849 and may 
be laid principally at the door of the president himself. In 
order to curry favor with the monarchists and Catholics — 
the combined conservative element — Louis Napoleon sent 
an expedition against Mazzini's Roman republic, thereby 
outraging the liberal sentiment of Europe even more than 
the Austrians did by their reconquest of Lombardy. 

Not for a year or two did the monarchical majority of the He appeals to 
Chamber begin to understand that Louis Napoleon's am- mem ory. 
bition was entirely personal, and therefore hostile to their 
own plans. He was most skilful in sounding the chords of 
the national memory, and before long was frequently re- 
ceived by the public with the old rallying cry of " Vive Na- 
poleon!" and even "Vive I'empereur!" The last veil fell 
from his plans when, in 185 1, he presented himself before 
the legislature with the request to alter the constitution for 
his own advantage. The constitution fixed the presidential 
term at four years, without the right to reelection. As by 
the operation of this article Louis Napoleon would have 
become a private citizen in 1852, he urged repeal upon the 
Chamber. When the Chamber refused, he resolved, in order 
to save himself, to overthrow the government and consti- 
tution. 

The coup d'etat was set for December 2, 1851. As soon The coup 
as the army was won over, the success of the conspirators December 2 
was certain. While the troops occupied Paris, closed the l8 5 x - 
hall of the deputies, and put the president's leading opponents 
under lock and key, the president himself announced by 
placard the return to the system of his famous uncle as em- 
bodied in the Constitution of the Year VIII. The country, 



460 



France Under Napoleon III 



The advent- 
urous policy 
of Napoleon 
III. 



Trouble be- 
tween Turkey 
and Russia. 



called upon to express its opinion upon these proceedings, in- 
dorsed the coup d'etat by a large majority. Louis Napoleon 
thereupon completed his government on the basis of a 
granted constitution, which, while preserving some liberal 
forms, as, for instance, a legislative body, practically concen- 
trated the whole power in the hands of the chief executive. 
There was nothing left to make the triumph complete but to 
cull its last fruits, and exactly a year after the coup d'etat the 
president assumed the title Emperor Napoleon III. 

The new emperor never forgot that he was a usurper and 
could maintain his throne only with the favor of the French 
people. As they were sure to exhibit increasing discontent 
with a domestic regime excluding them from all political 
activity, he resolved to distract their attention by a brilliant 
ioreign policy. This was taking a page from the note-book of 
Napoleon I., who frequently remarked that all the French 
people wanted to satisfy them was military glory. Whither 
the doctrine led that great man we are aware. Napoleon 
III., too, at first had his triumphs, but without ever climbing 
as high as his exemplar, managed in the end to fall much 
lower. 

The first chance for playing a role presented itself in the 
east. The weakness shown by the Ottoman empire in the 
Greek War of Liberation became greater in the succeeding 
decades, and led the Czar to imagine that the death-agony 
was at hand. He referred to the Sultan habitually as " the 
sick man," and persuaded himself that England and Russia 
between them ought to make ready to divide the heritage. 
But England preferred the Sultan to the Czar at Constanti- 
nople and resolved to act the part of champion of the Turk- 
ish empire. There were other complications, which led 
finally to the Czar's demanding (April, 1853) to be recognized 
as protector of all Greek Christians resident in Turkey. As 
this would have made Nicholas co-sovereign with the Sultan 



And the Unification of Italy 46 1 

in the Turkish dominions, the English ambassador urged 
his protege to refuse. The answer of the Russians was to 
occupy the Roumanian principalities in order to enforce 
their claims, and war followed between them and the Turks. 

But Turkey was not left alone this time as in 1828-29. England and 
England was in honor bound to help her; and though no p^Turkey. 
vital French interest was at stake, Napoleon, glad to find an 
occasion to put himself forward, offered England his alliance. 
Together the two western powers signed a treaty with Tur- 
key (March, 1854) and declared war upon Russia. What 
had threatened at first to be merely another Turco-Russian 
conflict, thus became a European war, the first on any con- 
siderable scale since the Napoleonic struggle. 

In the first part of the campaign of 1854 the Russians The Crimean 
retired from Roumania into their own territory and stood on ax ' * ' 

the defensive. The allies therefore were obliged to agree 
upon some point for attack, and after much waste of time 
hit upon the fortress of Sebastopol in the Crimea,. The war 
practically reduced itself to the siege of this great stronghold, 
which the Russians defended skilfully and manfully for a 
whole year. Its fall in September, 1855, discouraged the 
Russians greatly; and as Czar Nicholas, whose pretensions 
had caused the war, died during the siege, to be succeeded 
by his humane and moderate son, Alexander II. , negotia- 
tions could be begun, which led to the signing of the Peace The Peace of 
oi Paris (March, 1856). As Turkey had been the ally of ans ' x s " 
France and England, the general effect of the peace was a 
victory of the Sultan over his ancient foe, the Czar. The 
decadent and contemptible Ottoman Empire had all its pos- 
sessions guaranteed by the powers, who engaged not to inter- 
fere in its affairs. This plainly meant the delivering over of 
the Balkan Christians to the tender mercies of the Sultan. 
But nobody seemed to care as long as the provision robbed 
Russia of her influence at Constantinople. The fear of 



462 



France Under Napoleon III 



Napoleon's 
prestige. 



Napoleon 
reopens the 
Italian ques- 
tion. 



Cavour allies 
himself with 
Napoleon. 



Russia was shown in a further article, by which she was 
forbidden to keep warships in the Black Sea* 

The Crimean War, concluded at Paris under the eyes of 
Napoleon, greatly enhanced his influence; though, as al- 
ready remarked, it would be hard to say what advantage 
France reaped therefrom. Napoleon III.'s policy was per- 
sonal, not national. That is the conclusion which his whole 
reign confirms, and particularly the steps he now took in the 
Italian question. 

Napoleon, in spite of his name, was not so much a warrior 
as a clever and juggling politician endowed with ambition 
and a few general ideas. Among them was that of national- 
ity — every nation must come into its own — and it is one of 
the pleasanter sides of Napoleon that he was really willing 
to risk something to bring his idea to realization. The spec- 
tacle of a nation in chains had excited his sympathy for 
Italy even when a lad, and now led him to plan the libera- 
tion of the peninsula from Austrian rule — a generous impulse 
without doubt, but one explained by his personal predi- 
lections, not grounded in the necessities of the French state 
of which he was the temporary guardian. 

Italy since the failure of the rising of 1848 was dominated 
by Austria. The hopes and prayers of the patriots turned 
to Sardinia-Piedmont, and this state, under Victor Emman- 
uel II. and his great minister, Cavour, was systematically 
preparing itself for a new struggle. But Cavour was con- 
vinced that without the help of a great power Sardinia could 
not wage a victorious war against Austria. The campaign of 
1848-49 had pointed this lesson. Cautiously Cavour sought 
the friendship of Napoleon; joined, merely to put him under 
obligation, in the Crimean War; waved the national idea be- 
fore his eyes; and finally concluded with him a-ftamaJLal^ 
liance (Treaty of Plombieres, 1858). The alliance was di- 
rected against Austria, which was to be driven out of Italy. 



And the Unification of Italy 463 

The war began in the spring of 1859, and was over in a The wax of 
few weeks. By two victories, at Magenta and at Solferijao, * 
the allies — France and Sardinia — drove the Austrians out of 
Lombardy back upon the Quadrilateral. Italy was ablaze 
with bonfires and hailed Napoleon, wherever he appeared, 
with tumultuous enthusiasm. But much remained to be 
done; the Quadrilateral, one of the strongest defensive po- 
sitions of Europe, must be taken before Italy would be free. 
At that juncture occurred a dramatic change. Just as every- 
body was expecting news of another great battle, the tele- 
graph flashed the information that Napoleon and Francis 
Joseph had had a personal interview and arranged a peace 
(July). Austria agreed to give up Lombardy, but was per- 
mitted to retain Venetia, thus retaining a powerful foothold - 
in the peninsula. Victor Emmanuel II. and Cavour, though 
deeply disappointed, bowed to the inevitable, comforted by 
the reflection that Italian unity had in one short spring 
made gigantic strides. 

The considerations which moved Napoleon to his sudden Napoleon's 
turn-about were manifold. He was not a masterful char- making peace. 
acter and easily fell victim to his fears. The military prob- 
lems of breaking through the Quadrilateral alarmed him, 
Germany, by arming on the Rhine frontier, was threaten- 
ing his flank, and, above all, the movement in Italy filled 
him with dismay. He handed over Lombardy to Victor 
Emmanuel and hurried home, resolved to wash his hands of 
the troublesome Italian matter. He had entered the war 
prepared to do something for the cause of the Italian na- 
tionality, but he had not foreseen the immense turmoil 
which the war caused in the peninsula. 

To this turmoil we must now give attention, for it Annexations 
introduces us to the first stage in the history of Italian northerniuly. 
unification. Elated by the defeat of the Austrian foe, Tus- 
cany, Modena, Parma, and the Romagna, practically the 



464 



France Under Napoleon III 



whole of central Italy, drove out their rulers and declared 
for annexation to Sardinia. Victor Emmanuel, pleased 
though he was, dared not accept these territories without 
the consent of Napoleon. Feverish negotiations followed, 
which ended in an agreement that permitted the annexations 
in return for the cession to France of Savoy and Nice. Bis- 



THE UNIFICATION 
OF ITALY 




marck referred to the transaction ironically as Napoleon's 
pourboire (waiter's tip) for services rendered. The pay- 
ment was resented at the Sardinian court, but against it 
stood the immense advantage of Lombardy and the cen- 
tral states. Sardinia had in the course of a single year 
absorbed northern Italy except Venice. This is the first 
step in the unification of the peninsula. 



And the Unification of Italy 465 

The second was the capture the next year (i860) of the Garibaldi 
south, accomplished by the adventurous expedition of that sicilyand 
famous soldier of fortune, Garibaldi. This spirited leader Na P les - 
secretly gathered one thousand volunteers about him and set 
sail for Sicily. They had only to show themselves with the 
national colors for the Sicilians to toss their hats into the air 
and abandon the hated Bourbon king. Sicily conquered, 
Garibaldi sailed across the straits to the mainland, and again 
the proof was furnished that the Bourbon dynasty had never 
taken root among the people. The bold invader was ac- 
claimed as a saviour wherever he appeared, and in Septem- 
ber entered the city of Naples in triumph. The fugitive 
king, Francis II., made his last stand at the fortress of Gaeta, 
to pass at its surrender into life-long exile. His extensive 
kingdom (Naples and Sicily) declared by popular vote for 
annexation to Sardinia. The Garibaldians at the same 
time resolved to round off the previous Italian annexations 
in the center, and were on the point of seizing the Marches 
and Umbria, belonging to the States of the Church, when 
C^v^TrrTfTterposed and occupied them with the Sardinian 
army. It was only with difficulty that Garibaldi was dis- 
suaded from attempting to seize Rome itself. The second 
stage of Italian unification had yielded so considerable a 
harvest that only Venetia and Rome were still outside the 
national state. As Venetia was held by Austria, and Rome 
guarded by French troops who had never discontinued their 
occupation begun in 1849, tne attempt to seize either of 
these provinces meant war with a great power, and for such 
audacity Victor Emmanuel was not prepared. The prog- 
ress of the unitarian movement was therefore adjourned 
to a more auspicious time. 

In view of this situation the king and his great councillor, Victor Em- 
Cavour, resolved to inaugurate a period of rest and recupera- daimedkingof 
tion. . Technically there existed only a kingdom of Sardinia Ita ty' l861 - 



466 France Under Napoleon III 

with annexations several times the size of the little state, 
which had championed the national cause. In February, 
1861, deputies from all the absorbed sections met at Turin 
and proclaimed Victor Emmanuel king of Italy. It was a 
proud and uplifting moment in the history of a brave people. 
But there was still much work ahead; an administration,, 
finance^army and navy had all to be created, not to mention 
the necessity of finding a modus vivendi "with the Pope, who, 
outraged by his spoliation, had excommunicated the king, 
Cavour, his rebellious subjects — in fact, everybody connected 
with the revolution. The new constructive work had 
hardly been begun when the great Cavour died (June, 1861), 
and the cloak of the statesman fell upon the shoulders of 
well-meaning but uninspired politicians. 

Victor Emmanuel, conscious that his task was incom- 
plete, continued to look longingly toward Venetia and Rome, 
but was resolved to bide his time. Two great European 
crises furnished him the opportunity to realize his hopes. In 
the year 1866 there broke out the long-threatening war in 
Italy acquires Germany between Austria and Prussia. Prussia naturally 
appealed to Italy for help, and the two powers, upon both 
of whom Austria rested like an incubus, made an alliance. 
Austria was obliged to face two enemies at once; and al- 
though victorious over Italy, defeating her army at Custozza 
(June 24th) and her navy at Lissa in the Adriatic (July 20th) 
was so conclusively crushed by Prussia at Sadowa that she 
had to sign a peace. In the hope of winning French favor, the 
emperor of Austria had, on receipt of the news of Sadowa, 
handed over Venetia as a present to Napoleon III., but the 
French emperor at the conclusion of peace transferred the 
province to Victor Emmanuel. Venetia was presently in- 
corporated with Italy, and in November the old republic of 
St. Mark gave the king a stirring and patriotic welcome. 
Rome now alone remained outside the reconstituted na- 



Venetia, 1866. 



And the Unification of Italy 467 

tion. If the question had been submitted to the vote of the 
Romans whether they wished to be governed by the Pope or 
by the king, there can be no doubt for whom they would 
have declared. But French troops held the city for the 
Pope, and Napoleon made it plain that much as he had done 
for Italian unity, his complaisance stopped at the walls of 
the Eternal City. To snatch Rome from the Pope would 
have precipitated a French war. Again the cautious Victor 
Emmanuel resolved to be patient and let time work for him. 
In the year 1870 broke out the famous war between France 
and Prussia; and although the king of Italy took no hand 
in it, his country profited from the conflict. Napoleon, 
hard pressed, withdrew his troops from Rome and shortly 
after was completely overwhelmed at Sedan. There was 
now no one to hinder the march upon Rome. In Septem- Italy acquires 
ber, 1870, the Italian army appeared before the gates and 
forced its way into the city amid the plaudits of the citizens. 
Pius IX., abandoned by the Catholic powers, fulminated 
anathemas upon his despoilers, but was permitted to retain 
the Vatican palace and live there unmolested. The Vat- 
ican, flanking St. Peter's Church, has since been the Pope's 
official residence, but the ancient City of the Seven Hills 
Was declared the capital of the Italian state. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE UNIFICATION OF GERMANY 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe, Chapters XXIII.- 
XXIV.; Phillips, Modern Europe, Chapters XVI- 
XVIII. ; Seignobos, Europe Since 1814, Chapter XV.; 
Andrews, Modern Europe, Vol. II., Chapters V.-VI; 
Henderson, Short History of Germany, Vol. II., Chap- 
ters IX.-X.; Von Sybel, Founding of the German 
Empire by William I. (solid, based on the public rec- 
ords); Lowe, Prince Bismarck; Head lam, Bismarck; 
Munroe Smith, Bismarck and German Unity. 

Source Readings: Robinson, Readings, Vol. II., Chapter 
XL., Sections 4-5 (Koniggratz, the Spanish episode, 
etc.); Busch, Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his 
History; Whitman, Personal Reminiscences of Prince 
Bismarck; Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences. 

Prussia under The many heartrending failures of the year 1848 .in_ Ger- 
many had at least made clear that P russia was the piv ot of 
German politics. The ensuing reaction spread a darkness 
over the" land, "duT even in this situation it was felt to be 
a distinct advantage that Prussia had acquired a constitu- 
tional government. The unmanly conduct of the ministry 
during the crisis injured the reputation of the state and re- 
duced its influence to nothing as long as the discredited 
Frederick William IV. occupied the throne. But, owing to 
symptoms of insanity, he retired from power in 1858 in favor 
of his brother William, who definitely became king on the 
demise of the sovereign in 1861. 

468 



The Unification of Germany 469 

The advent of William I. marks the beginning of a new William I. 
era in Prussian history. Endowed, in sharp contrast to his fa-m f the 
romantic brother, with a matter-of-fact mind, he straightway arm y- 
took up an urgent practical reform. Having become con- 
vinced that the Prussian army was not what it ought to be, 
he resolved to make it more effective. He had in this con- 
nection no great plans for the future of Germany; he simply 
undertook the thing which lay immediately at hand. The 
Prussian army was a creation of the War of Liberation and 
was based on the principle of a universal three-year service 
with the colors. It was in the full sense of the word a 
popular army (das Volk in Waff en) . In practice, however, 
many exemptions had been allowed, and the service had 
been reduced from three to two years. The king, a born 
soldier, saw that if he applied the system rigorously he 
would have not only a larger army, but also, owing to the 
longer drill, a more perfect machine. Plainly, the measure 
would necessitate a greater expenditure; but as the reform 
was a logical move along the line of existing laws, William 
had no fear of Parliamentary opposition. He was mis- 
taken. The Parliament disliked both the lengthened ser- 
vice and the increased expenditure ; and after having voted 
the reform provisionally, refused definitely, in 1861, to 
sanction it. As the king, nevertheless, went ahead with 
the military reorganization, Prussia embarked upon a bit- 
ter and prolonged conflict between executive and Parlia- 
ment, wherein the people for the most part enthusiastically 
supported their representatives. 

Outvoted and discouraged, the king in 1862 called into Bismarck, 
his cabinet as prime minister the man who was destined not minster, 
only to break the opposition of the Parliament, but also to 
bring about the unification of Germany. Otto von Bis- 
marck was a Brandenburg squire of ancient lineage, who in 
the revolution of 1848 had fearlessly defended the royal pre- 



47° The Unification of Germany 

rogative against the democratic innovators. He had since 
entered upon a diplomatic career, had served at Frankfort 
with the Bund, at St. Petersburg and Paris, and had acquired 
the true vision of the statesman. The programme with 
which he took power was to maintain the reorganized army 
at all costs, and use it, as soon as practicable, for the purpose 
of settling old scores with Austria. 
Bismarck's When he announced to the members of Parliament, with 

the Parliament, his habitual self-assurance, that the government had no 
idea of changing its army policy, a terrific storm was dis- 
charged upon his head. Not only the Parliament but the 
masses became more and more hostile, till the stubborn 
minister's name became a byword and a reproach. For a 
few months things went steadily from bad to worse, and the 
word revolution was already being whispered through the 
land, when there occurred a succession of events which 
gradually drew the public attention elsewhither, and ended 
by brilliantly justifying the king and his unyielding minister. 
Schleswig and In the year 1863 occurred the long-expected death of Fred- 
awayfron/ 6 erick VII. of Denmark, the last male of his line. He was 
Denmark. succeeded, by virtue of the European agreement known as 

the Protocol of London, by his relative Christian IX., but 
the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, never having rati- 
fied the agreement, immediately proclaimed the duke of Au- 
gustenburg, who was, according to their view, the rightful 
heir. They coupled with the proclamation of the duke 
the announcement of their separation from Denmark, in or- 
der to unite with Germany. German public opinion, stirred 
to its depths, heartily supported the project. 
Prussia and The Bund at Frankfort, anxious to curry popular favor, 

warw^T^ 6 resolved to interfere in behalf of the Schleswig-Holsteiners, 
Denmark, but before it could get well under way Bismarck pushed it 

aside by persuading Austria to settle the issue conjointly 
with Prussia. He had no faith in the ability of the Bund to 



The Unification of Germany 471 

dc anything effectively, and hence followed his own line of 
action. Christian IX. immediately upon his accession had 
signed a bill, passed by the Danish legislature, incorporating 
Schleswig, that is, the northernmost of the two provinces, 
with Denmark. This was contrary to the Protocol of 
London, which recognized Christian as king of Denmark 
on the understanding that he would respect the autonomy 
of the duchies. Prussia and Austria demanded that the 
new law be annulled, failing which they would declare war. 
When Christian remained obdurate, Prussian and Austrian 
troops, in January, 1864, entered the duchies side by side, 
and in a swift campaign brought Denmark to her knees. 
In August, Christian IX. ceded Schleswig and Holstein to 
the victors. 

Now that Prussia and Austria possessed the duchies, the Bfemarck 
question was how to divide the spoils. Of course the di- ^ustrfaover 
vision turned out, as Bismarck had foreseen, a difficult mat- the division of 

' ' Schleswig- 

ter. And now the Prussian statesman could take a step Holstein. 
toward the fulfilment of his most ardent hopes, which had 
long been aimed at the expulsion of Austria from Germany. 
While picking a quarrel with his late ally over the Schleswig- 
Holstein booty, he steadily prepared for war. Finally, in 
the spring of 1866, Prussia signed a close alliance with Italy, 
while Austria, for her part, strove to get the support of the 
smaller German states. And owing to the fact that Bis- 
marck's policy of violence aroused in Germany a general 
fear of the Prussian plans, almost all the southern and cen- 
tral states now actually placed themselves under the wings 
of the older and more conservative German power. 

These dispositions made — Prussia having secured the Meaning of 
support of Italy, and Austria the alliance of Saxony, Hanover, ^J^ ° 
and all the South German states — in June, 1866, the two 
apparently well-matched combatants took the field. The 
contest was the culmination of the rivalry inaugurated over 



472 



The Unification of Germany 



a hundred years ago at the time of Frederick the Great and 
Maria Theresa; the prize of the winner, the supremacy in 
Germany. 

Although a part of the Prussian army had to be detached 
against the German allies of Austria, the Austrians, too, were 
hindered from complete concentration by the obligation of 
sending an army to Venetia to defend that province against 
the Italians. Weakened only by these subtractions, the 
Austrians and Prussians, massed in two great armies, made 
ready to meet each other in Bohemia. This meeting, it was 
evident, would decide the war. 

Now it was seen that King William's plan of a strong and 
modern army had its merits. The Prussians were ready 
sooner than the Austrians, and showed themselves to be 
much better armed and disciplined. By the admirable 
arrangements of the gjeat^trategist Moltke, three Prussian 
columns were made to converge upon the Austrians, and 
catching them at Sadowa, in Bohemia, on July 3d, as in a 
vice, crushed them utterly. The war had hardly begun 
when it was over. It was of little consequence that the Aus- 
trians in Italy defeated the Italians at Custozza, or that the 
Prussians completed their triumph by defeating the South 
Germans. Austria was humbled by Prussia, and had to 
make peace. A truce in July was followed in August, 1866, 
by the definitive Peace of Prague. 

By the Peace of Prague Austria withdrew from German 
affairs, ceded her rights in Schleswig-Hol stein to Prussia, 
and left Prussia free to form a confederation of the states of 
North Germany. The South German states were accorded 
the right to form a federation of their own. Although Aus- 
tria made the further sacrifice of Venetia, which was sur- 
rendered to Italy, it must be acknowledged that her losses, 
in view of the immensity of her disaster, were not crushing. 
As soon as these arrangements were assured, Bismarck made 




1 



The Unification of Germany 473 

peace with the German allies of Austria. He let off Bavaria, 
Wurtemberg, Baden, and Hesse, constituting the South Ger- 
man states, with money fines ; but certain hostile North Ger- 
man states, like Hanover, Nassau, and Hesse-Cassel, which 
drove a wedge between the mass of Prussia and her pos- 
sessions on the Rhine, he incorporated with the monarchy 
of the Hohenzollerns. The war made Prussia paramount 
in Germany, but as long as the South German states re- 
mained aloof from North Germany, national unity was in- 
complete. It took another war, the war with France, to 
crown Bismarck's national policy. 

Meanwhile, the Peace left Bismarck free to establish a The North 
North German Confederation. In the stress of civil war, the federation, 
old Bund had, of course, gone to its reward, with no greater 
outburst of sorrow than had attended the demise of the Holy 
Roman Empire. For the first time in its history Germany 
was to have a strong union. The states which joined it ac- 
cepted the king of Prussia as president, while the legislative 
power was intrusted to a Federal Council or Bundesrath, 
representing the participating governments, and a Parlia- 
ment or Reichstag, representing the people and elected by 
universal suffrage. Although the component states pre- 
served their separate organization, they practically lost their 
sovereign rights, which were exercised by the king of Prussia 
(as president), the Bundesrath, and the Reichstag. The 
South German states, free to form a confederation of their 
own, failed to do so, and occupied a very unsatisfactory 
position as wandering comets of the German system, until a 
new crisis drew them into the North German Confederation. 

The crisis, which constitutes the last step in the unifica- The Mexican 
tion of Germany, was precipitated by the strained relations muddle - 
between the North German Confederation and France. We 
parted from the Emperor Napoleon on the occasion of his 
victorious campaign of 1859 in Italy. While contributing 



474 The Unification of Germany 

immensely to the liberation of Italy, he had not failed to col- 
lect a small fee for services in the form of Nice and Savoy. 
The Italian campaign marks the last occasion on which his 
ventures prospered. Owing to his persistent occupation of 
Rome with French troops for the purpose of protecting the 
Pope, he sacrificed the good-will of the Italian nation, won 
upon the battlefield, and made himself almost as detested 
as the Austrians. Then in an evil hour he turned his 
desires upon the New World. He was induced to interfere 
in the internal affairs of Mexico, and proceeding from one 
measure to another ended by overturning the republic and 
setting up an empire under the Archduke Maximilian, 
brother of the emperor of Austria. His candidate landed 
in Mexico in 1864. The great American Civil War was 
just at its height, and the United States was too embarrassed 
to do more than register a weak protest against this viola- 
tion of the Monroe Doctrine; but as soon as the Civil War 
was over the government at Washington gave Napoleon to 
understand that he must withdraw immediately. Napoleon 
shuffled awhile, but did not have the courage to face the 
consequences. The French sailed for Europe, and Maxi- 
milian, deserted by his allies, was captured and shot (1867)- 
Thereupon the Mexicans reestablished their republic. 
France grows The shame of this disgraceful ending was not the only 
Prussia. hapless feature about the Mexican adventure, for, owing to 

the absence of the best French troops in the New World, 
Napoleon could exercise no influence on the issue of the 
Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Prussia won, established her 
supremacy in Germany, and refused France any sort of 
territorial equivalent. Napoleon's position was profoundly 
shaken. The French people were angry that the oppor- 
tunity of the embarrassment of the German powers had not 
been used to realize that cherished dream, the Rhine boun- 
dary, and were offended because their eastern neighbor had 



The Unification of Germany 475 

become strong and united. More and more passionately 
public opinion began to insist that the audacity of Prussia 
must be checked. Consequently, the relations of the two 
neighbors became gradually worse. A little incident sufficed 
to precipitate war. 

In the year 1868 a revolution had occurred in Spain by The Spanish 
which the Bourbon sovereign, Queen Isabella, was expelled. mci ent * 
Ever since, the Spanish leaders had been looking about 
Europe for a new king, and finally offered the crown to 
Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a distant relative of 
the king of Prussia. The prospect of a German prince 
upon the Spanish throne greatly excited French opinion, 
and Napoleon hastened to protest. Prince Leopold's wise 
refusal of the crown quieted alarm, until, in an evil hour, it 
occurred to the French Government to insist that King 
William should promise never to permit his relative to be- 
come a candidate in the future. On July 13, 1870, the 
French ambassador made this unnecessary demand while 
William was taking the waters at Ems. He indignantly 
refused, scenting in the proposal an effort to humiliate him 
before the public opinion of Europe; whereupon Napoleon, 
aroused by the rebuff and moved by various court in- 
fluences, persuaded the French legislature to declare war 
(July 19th). 

The advantages in the struggle which now ensued were, Theadvan- 
from the beginning, with Prussia. The first success was pj^t™™ 
achieved in connection with the South German states. 
Napoleon was hoping that they would, out of aversion for 
Prussia, side with him, but the far-seeing Bismarck had 
provided for just such an emergency. Immediately after 
the war of 1866 he had signed offensive and defensive treaties 
with the South German states, which obliged them to fight 
shoulder to shoulder with Prussia. Even without these al- 
liances, however, the South German governments would not 



476 



The Unification of Germany 



The early 

German 

victories. 



The invest- 
ments of Metz 
and Paris. 



have remained neutral, for the people were aroused to ex- 
plosive enthusiasm and insisted on regarding the cause of 
Prussia as that of all Germany. From a purely military 
point of view, too, the preliminary honors were all with 
the German side. Prussia and her allies were ready sooner, 
and mustered a larger and better-organized army. In con- 
sequence, the famous Moltke, who had the campaign in 
charge, could assume the offensive and invade France. 

The Germans found the French drawn up in two main 
bodies, one in Alsace under General MacMahon, the other 
in Lorraine, under Napoleon himself. A simultaneous at- 
tack on August 6th was crowned with a double victory, 
obliging MacMahon to abandon Alsace, and Napoleon to fall 
back on the great fortress of Metz. The combined German 
armies thereupon attacked the French around Metz, and by 
three bloody battles, culminating in the battle of Gravelotte 
(August 1 8th), succeeded in blocking the French retreat 
and bottling up the best French army in the chief fortress of 
the eastern frontier. Before the situation around Metz had 
become acute, Napoleon made his escape to the army of 
MacMahon, which he now tried to bring up, as fast as pos- 
sible, to the relief of Metz. But he was ruinously defeated 
at Sedan and obliged to surrender with his whole army 
-""(September 2d). After a moving interview with King 
William he was sent to Germany as a prisoner of war. 

Thus far the campaign had been admirably managed on 
the part of General Moltke. The war had hardly lasted a 
month, and already Napoleon, at the head of one of -the 
French armies, had been captured, while the second French 
army, commanded by Bazaine, was locked up in Metz. Ap- 
parently, it remained only to march upon Paris and dictate 
terms of peace. Accordingly, a German army of 200,000 
men proceeded westward, and toward the end of September 
undertook the investment of the French capital. 



The Unification of Germany 477 

Meanwhile, important things had happened in the capital. The Third 
The calamity of Sedan was hardly known when the whole epu 
city of Paris rose in indignation against the luckless imperial 
government. The Empress Eugenie fled in dismay amid 
scenes of wild disorder, and France was declared a republic 
(September 4th) - 1 At the same time a number of men, the 
most prominent of whom was Gambetta, set up, for the pur- 
pose of effectively prosecuting the war, the Government of 
the National Defence. 

The siege of Paris marks the last stage of the war. If the Capitulation 
Germans entertained the hope of settling things in a few f weTby°" 
weeks, they were greatly mistaken. Gambetta, supported P eace - 
by the opinion of the country, made a most active and hon- 
orable resistance, but his raw levies were no match, in the 
long run, for the disciplined soldiers of the enemy. The 
surrender of Bazaine at Metz, on October 27 th, withdrew 
from the war the last veteran army which France boasted, 
but still the Parisians held out, until forced by hunger they 
at last, on January 28, 1871, signed a capitulation. The 
war was over. France had to buy peace from Germany by 
paying an indemnity of one billion dollars, and by ceding 
Alsace and a part of Lorraine. 2 In March the Germans 
began the evacuation of the French territory. 

But it was not the old divided fatherland to which the King William 
German soldiers returned. The great victories won by the man^mperor, 

united efforts of north and south had aroused a boundless January 18, 

1871. 
enthusiasm. In all circles the feeling prevailed that the 

present happy military union must take a constitutional 

form; and, yielding to this sentiment, the South German 

1 The republic of September 4th is known generally as the Third 
Republic. The First Republic was proclaimed in 1792 and destroyed by 
Napoleon in 1799; the Second Republic belongs to the period 1848-51; 
and the Third Republic, of 1870, the most long-lived of all, exists at this 
day. 

- The preliminary treaty, signed at Versailles, was in May, 1871, con- 
verted into the definitive Peace of Frankfort. 



478 



The Unification of Germany 



The Com- 
mune. 



Victory of 
the National 
Assembly. 



governments signed agreements with Prussia by which they 
entered the North German Confederation. It was further 
stipulated that the Confederation was to be rebaptized the 
German Empire, and that its president, the king of Prussia, 
should take the title German emperor. On January 18, 
1871, the edifice of German unity was completed and the 
fact proclaimed to the world from the Hall of Mirrors in 
Louis XIV.'s sumptuous palace at Versailles. Bismarck, the 
architect of Germany, was raised to the rank of prince, and 
became- the head of the national cabinet under the name 
of chancellor. ' — ~— ■ 

France, in the month following the treaty with Germany, 
went through a terrible crisis. The peace had been author- 
ized by an Assembly freely elected by the people and con- 
vened at Bordeaux. This body gave Thiers, a man of sound 
conservative views, the provisional executive authority, but, 
being largely composed of monarchists, refused to declare 
for a republic. In March, as soon as peace was assured, the 
Assembly removed to Versailles in order to be nearer Paris. 
Meanwhile, the strong republican element of Paris had be- 
come very suspicious of the conservative intentions of the 
Assembly, and presently a group of revolutionists, rising 
in insurrection, set up what purported to be a thorough- 
going democratic government, called the Commune. They 
terrorized the middle classes into submission and prepared 
to resist Thiers and the National Assembly, if necessary, by 
arms. 

The result was a bitter civil war, lasting two months 
(March-May, 187 1). Insurgent Paris was regularly be- 
sieged, this time by the national government of France. 
But the loyalty of the troops decided the issue, and in May 
the insurgents made their last stand in the heart of the 
capital. When resistance became useless, a few desperadoes 
attempted to set fire to Paris and actually succeeded in 



The Unification of Germany 479 

destroying the Tuileries, the City Hall, and a few other his- 
torical structures. The exasperated victors knew no mercy. 
Thousands of men, called communists, but really repre- 
senting every shade of democratic opinion, were shot without 
trial, thousands were transported or condemned to imprison- 
ment with hard labor. The National Assembly became the 
unchallenged government of all France. How would it order 
the future of the country? The year which gave birth to a 
strong imperial government in Germany brought defeated 
and discouraged France to a point where her best friends 
might despair of her destiny. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

GREAT BRITAIN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

References: Seignobos, Europe Since 1815, Chapters 
II.-IV.; Terry, History of England, pp. 976-1068; 
Gardiner, Student's History of England, pp. 875-970: 
Erskine May, The Constitutional History of England 
(1760-1871); McCarthy, History of Our Own Times; 
also, Ireland Since the Union; Bryce, Two Centuries 
of Irish History, 1689-1870; Malleson, The Indian 
Mutiny; Payne, Colonies and Dependencies; Dilke, 
Problems of Greater Britain; Morley, Life of Glad- 
stone. For biographical matter (Canning, Wellington, 
Palmerston, Disraeli, etc.) see the Dictionary of Na- 
tional Biography. 

Source Readings: Adams and Stephens, Select Docu- 
ments, Nos. 259-76 (The Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 ; 
Disestablishment of the Irish Church, etc.) ; Colby, Se- 
lections from the Sources, Nos. 11 2-1 7. 



Great Britain 
at the close 
of the Na- 
Doleonic wars. 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century the govern- 
ment of Great Britain was still legally vested in king, Lords, 
and Commons, but the really decisive influence had shifted, 
as we have seen, to the third partner, for the Commons not 
only voted supplies and made laws, but also controlled the 
ministry and the administration. The eighteenth century, 
which had created this Parliamentary government, witnessed 
also the successful transformation of England into the great- 
est commercial and colonial power of the world. India and 
America had been won from France; and though this advan- 
tage was in part offset by the revolt of the American colonies, 

4.80 



Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 481 

the long wars with the French republic and Napoleon had 
made clear to all eyes that England was without an equal 
upon the seas. For almost a quarter of a century (1793- 
18 1 5) the old rivals, France and England, waged a bitter 
and engrossing strife; and when Napoleon was at last over- 
thrown, England, like the states of the Continent, heaved a 
sigh of relief. The next years are marked by weariness and 
reaction. But they are also characterized by signs of a 
gathering reform movement, which was set on abolishing 
the accumulated abuses in state and society. 

These abuses were so patent and unreasonable that it is The conserva- 
not credible that they would have been maintained against i a s °d° ng " 
popular protest for even a day, if the storms of the French 
Revolution had not created among the English governing 
classes a general distrust against innovations of any sort. 
The maintenance of existing institutions became their creed 
as it was that of Metternich. Now this prevailing conserv- 
atism was championed by the Tory party, which having 
conducted the government during the war, harvested the 
prestige associated with its successful termination. The 
Tory party, therefore, continued in power after the war and, 
following along established lines, set its teeth so vehemently 
against reform that Castlereagh, the minister for foreign af- 
fairs, even went the length of hitching England to the chariot 
of the Holy Alliance. But this unnatural condition could 
not last. A group of young Tories were more amenable to The Can- 
progress; and when in 1822, on the death of Castlereagh, nmgl e 
their leader, Canni ng, assumed the foreign portfolio, Eng- 
land took her first timid steps on the road to improvement. 
Canning courageously broke with the Holy Alliance. He 
protected Portugal against an absolutist restoration, joined 
the United States in recognizing the independence of the 
South American republics, and helped prepare the liberation 
of Greece. A new breath of life was carried into domestic 



482 Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 

affairs too; but Canning died in 1827, before very much had 

been done in this field. 

Religious Nevertheless, owing largely to the impulse given by Can- 

freedom, . . . , . * _ , _ , . . 

1828-29. nmg, a series of acts were passed m 1828 and 1829 which 

are a noble beginning of British reform legislation in the 
nineteenth century. They affected the status of Protestant 
Dissenters and Roman Catholics. The freedom of worship 
granted to the former in 1689 had been since extended to the 
latter also, but both groups were, chiefly by the Test Act 
of 1673, excluded from holding public office. In 1828 the 
Test Act was repealed, and in consequence the Dissenters 
were put on an equality with Anglicans and made eligible to 
all posts in the gift of the state. So abiding, however, was 
the prejudice against the Roman Catholics that certain regu- 
lations excluding them from both Houses of Parliament were 
kept in force. Under the lash of this injustice a passionate 
Irishman, Daniel O'Connell, started a campaign which took 
such an ominous form among his countrymen that the gov- 
ernment became alarmed, and passed (1829) the Emancipa- 
tion Bill, at last flinging wide the doors of Parliament to the 
Catholic subjects of the crown and restoring them to their 
full civil rights. 
The need of Hardly had these measures of religious toleration been 

reform? en ^ carried when an agitation was started in favor of the reform 
of Parliament itself. The House of Commons, indeed, in- 
vited severe criticism. It was of feudal origin, and showed 
its derivation in that it represented not the nation, but 
certain privileged bodies. These were of two kinds, the 
counties and the boroughs. The counties elected 186 mem- 
bers on an ungenerous franchise system, but were hardly 
open to criticism compared with the boroughs, which were 
a perfect sink of corruption. The boroughs elected 467 
members by methods so various as to defy description. Suf- 
fice it that borough members were ordinarily elected by the 



Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 483 

town corporations; that is, by privileged bodies, composed 
in some cases of no more than a handful of individuals. In 
one class of boroughs a rich man, usually a nobleman, had ac- 
quired the right of naming the two members of the borough. 
They represented in Parliament nothing but himself. Such a 
borough was derisively called a pocket-borough, and the whole 
system, as is plain without additional details, was rotten to the 
core. However, as a further feature, filling the cup of injus- 
tice to the brim, we may note an antiquated system of distri- 
bution of seats. The change in the conditions of population 
produced by the development of manufactures in the north of 
England was disregarded, and not only did Leeds, Birming- 
ham, and other important new towns remain unrepresented, 
but the whole kingdom of Scotland had no more than 45 
members against the 44 of the backward county of Cornwall. 

The Whig party, which championed the reform of Parlia- The Reform 
ment, soon won such favor that it was able to put an end to c ° x 32 ' 
the long Tory rule. In 1830 the duke of Wellington, who 
had become the head of the Tories and prime minister soon 
after the death of Canning, was obliged to resign because he 
declared himself satisfied with Parliamentary representation 
as it was, and in the general elections of 183 1, the Whigs for 
the first time in half a century carried a majority of seats. 
Their leader, Earl Grey, now brought forward a Reform 
Bill which, after meeting with violent opposition in the House 
of Lords, was at last (1832) accepted by both houses. The 
new law achieved two results: (1) By suppression of the rot- 
ten boroughs 143 seats were set free for distribution among 
the towns and counties which were not sufficiently repre- 
sented; and (2) by a more uniform and more liberal electoral 
franchise 1 200,000 additional subjects were conceded the 

1 In the counties, copyholders and leaseholders of lands worth £10 a 
year were admitted to vote; also tenants-at-will of lands worth £50. In the 
boroughs, householders (whether as owners or tenants) of houses worth 
£10 a year were given the same privilege. 



484 Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 



Emergence of 
the working- 
man as a 
political factor. 



right to vote. Although this was not pure democracy, with 
its corollary of universal suffrage, the House of Commons was 
henceforth far more representative of the nation, and better 
prepared in consequence to consider measures demanded 
by the public welfare. 

The Reform Act of 1832 marks the beginning of the legis- 
lation by which aristocratic England was gradually democ- 
ratized. The Whigs, reorganized as the Liberal party, 
undertook, with proper safeguards against precipitancy, to 
favor this process; while the Tories, known henceforth as 
Conservatives, continued, in the main, to oppose change, 
but wisely accepted every reform as soon as it had become 
law. Both parties continued to represent largely the ancient 
aristocracy of the soil and the newer aristocracy of wealth. 
But the Liberals showed the effect of modern thought by at- 
tempting to secure contact with the masses. And that brings 
us to a matter of the greatest possible importance. Through 
the discoveries of science and the development of machinery, 
English industry had been tremendously stimulated. The 
presence of coal and iron in the northern and western counties 
had occasioned the almost magical growth of new towns com- 
posed largely of laborers, who, for the present, had few rights 
and were mercilessly exploited by the great manufacturers. 
With the steady growth of their numbers they would inev- 
itably develop a sense of power, sure to take the form of a 
regular programme of political and economic rights. The 
wild agitation known as the Chartist movement, the first in- 
vasion into politics of the new industrial class, apprised the 
governing group that the workingmen must henceforth be 
reckoned with. The Chartist movement (183 7-48) , so called 
from the popular petition proclaimed as the People's Charter, 
aimed chiefly at universal suffrage; and although it failed at 
the first onset to attain its object, it taught the masses to 
organize and rally around the new ideal of democratic justice. 



Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 485 

The steady pressure of an increasingly enlightened press Repeal of the 
and public accounts for the succeeding reforms. Let us first om aws * 
look at the measures adopted in connection with trade. 
England had thus far discouraged importation by a protective 
system, the chief feature of which was a high duty upon 
corn or grain. The people who profited by this policy were 
the great landholders, while the measure weighed heavily 
upon the workingmen, who had to pay an inordinately high 
price for bread. Two intelligent employers of labor, Richard 
Cobden and John Bright, undertook a campaign to instruct 
public opinion, and in 1846 had the satisfaction of convincing 
the ministry and Parliament of the wisdom of repealing the 
Corn Laws. With agricultural products made free, there Free trade, 
seemed no good reason for maintaining the tariff upon man- 
ufactured articles. England adopted the policy of free 
trade, to which, in spite of sporadic opposition, she has 
remained steadily attached ever since. The missing rev- 
enue, without which the state could not live, was replaced 
by an income tax. 

The continued agitation in favor of a wider suffrage led, Democratiza- 
in the course of the century, to two acts supplementary to men t by the 
the reform of 1832. -In_xS4-7- the Conservative ministry of ald^ls? 67 
Disraeli succeeded in getting a measure passed, the chief 
feature of which was the l owerin g of the property quali- 
fication for the franchise; and in 1884 the Liberal ministry 
of Gladstone carried a bill admitting the agricultural la- 
borers to the vote, besides remedying some inequalities of 
representation. The English electoral system still shows 
some anomalies, and the very poor, the have-nothings, 
cannot exercise the franchise, but the right to vote is now 
so generally extended that the House of Commons is fairly 
representative of English public opinion, and constitutes 
almost, if not quite, a democratic body in the fullest sense 
of the term. 



486 Great Britain in the Ninetee?itfi Century 

Other reforms. A great many other nineteenth century reforms, covering 
almost the whole field of social organization, can be done 
but scant justice here. By an extensive factory legislation 
Parliament has attempted to protect children, women, and, 
finally, the workingmen themselves, against the ruthless ex- 
ploitation of the employers. A series of administrative bills 
has gradually taken the local government out of the hands 
of the aristocracy and given it to councils elected by the 
people. At the same time the whole civil service has been 
committed to a paid body of officials with permanent tenure, 
in consequence of which a change of ministry in our day 
affects only the heads of departments and can no longer 
shake the public order. 

Ireland. The most important domestic question of the century re- 

mains to be considered: its name is Ireland. With the 
Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 a beginning had been 
made toward redressing the heaped-up wrongs of centuries. 
But the English prejudice against the Irish was strong and 
persistent. O'Connell, the Irish leader, inclined to the 
view that the British Parliament would never do justice to 
his country, and presently began to agitate for the repeal of 
the Act of Union (1801) by which Ireland had lost its legis- 
lative independence. This may fairly be called the begin- 
ing of the Home Rule movement. With such a policy no 
English party would sympathize; but when in 1845 the Irish 
potato-crop failed and a terrible famine ensued, Parliament 
felt obliged to do something to alleviate the inhuman con- 
ditions upon the lesser island. Thus a turning-point was 
reached, and a policy of legislative enactments inaugurated 
which gives proof of an honorable desire to remove some of 
the most crying grievances. In 1869 the Anglican Church, 
which since the days of Elizabeth had been also the national 
Church of Ireland, was disestablished. Although the Church 
of an alien people, it was possessed not only of millions of 



Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 487 

pounds worth of buildings and lands, but also drew part of The Irish lane 
its revenues, in the form of tithes, from the Irish Catholics. ques on " 
Now only did Ireland achieve real religious equality. The 
ministry which disestablished the Episcopal Church was 
presided over by the Liberal leader, Gladstone. With an 
appetite whetted by success, Gladstone now ventured to 
attack the far more complicated land question. The soil of 
Ireland was generally owned by English absentee landlords 
and cultivated by Irish tenants for a payment of rent. The 
law, having been made by the conqueror, was very unfair to 
the peasants, who lived in revolting squalor, at the mercy of 
their masters. A_series of Land Acts, passed, some by 
the Liberals and some by the Conservatives, and inspired 
by the idea of affording protection against landlord cruelties, 
has culminated in the creation of a state fund from which 
the peasant may borrow money on easy terms for the pur- 
chase of his farm. Doubtless, the moral and economic 
conditions of the island have much improved, but one matter 
remains where it was: the Irish persistently demand Home Home Rule. 
Rule; that is, they desire a law authorizing them to govern 
themselves in all matters strictly local. Gladstone finally 
incorporated this demand in his Liberal programme; but 
although on one occasion (1892) a Home Rule Bill passed the 
Commons, the Lords promptly rejected it, and Gladstone let 
the issue drop. Not till the twentieth century did the 
situation take a turn favorable to Irish hopes. 

Let us turn our glance from these domestic affairs to the The expan- 
wonderful expansion of the British Empire over all known f a °^° ng * 
lands and seas. The colonial leadership won in the eigh- 
teenth century has been confirmed by a thousand bonds 
of commerce and civilization. The vast lands over which 
waves the British flag fall into two main groups. Regions 
like Canada, Australia, and South Africa, which have been 
settled largely from Britain, are granted a very substantial 



488 Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 



nper 
sder; 



self-government, while provinces like India or the colonies 
of Central Africa, where natives predominate, are made di- 
rectly dependent on the central government, which secures 
its hold by a British administration and a British army of 
occupation. These latter, in distinction from the self-gov- 
erning colonies, are called crown colonies. During the last 
generation much enthusiasm has been aroused in connection 
with a movement which purposes to bind the self-governing 
colonies more closely to the mother country by allowing 
them to send representatives to a central British Parliament. 
The movement is known as Imperial Federation, but though 
toasted on all patriotic occasions, has thus far been unable 
to surmount the practical difficulties in the way. 

Naturally, these world-wide colonial interests have 
brought many cares and not infrequently have led to colonial 
wars. The most important take us to India and South 
Africa. In, 1857 the Sepoys, who are the native soldiery of 
India, commanded by English officers, m utinie d, and be- 
fore they could be put down the cruel deeds of the natives 
had almost been outdone by the victors. Thereupon Parlia- 
ment was aroused to revise the whole relations of the home 
country to its colony. The charter of the East India Com- 
pany, a private association of merchants, in whose hands the 
administration of the great dependency had rested since its 
conquest, was revoked (1858), and the control, including 
the management of army, navy, justice, and administration, 
was transferred to the crown and its officials. 

The South African troubles had their origin in the exist- 
ence in the midst of British territory of two small republics, 
the Transvaal and Orange Free State, inhabited by Dutch 
immigrants, called Boers. The Boers naturally enough de- 
sired to preserve their independence, while the British were 
anxious to bring them within the pale of their influence. 
Quarrels followed, attended by rash and unjust acts on both 



Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 489 

sides, with the unhappy issue of a fierce and prolonged war 
(1899-1902). The small Boer forces, after heroic resistance 
under skilful leaders, were at last scattered and broken, and 
the two states annexed by the British crown. 

The British foreign policy in the nineteenth and twentieth British foreigr 
centuries has been determined by the circumstance that Eng- ^° lcy " 
land is the greatest commercial and colonial power in the 
world. Although with her splendid start and untiring en- 
ergy she has left every other European state far behind, she 
is quick to take alarm at the rise of a possible rival. Owing 
largely to the struggles of the past, she was inclined, during 
the decades immediately following the fall of Napoleon, to 
keep a sharp lookout toward France; but on discovering 
that France was occupied with other matters, she presently 
turned her attention to Russia. The great Slav power was 
pushing her interests chiefly in the direction of Constanti- 
nople and central and eastern Asia. This action England 
tried to check with varying success, going so far on one 
occasion as to declare war. When in 1853 the Czar's forces War with 
invaded Turkey, England made an alliance with Napoleon 5 6 USSia ' * 54 ~ 
III. and hurried troops to the Black Sea. The ensuing 
campaign is known as the Crimean War. The capture of 
Sebastopol inclined Russia to ask for peace, the terms of 
which were drawn up at Paris (1856). Although the ad- 
vantages attained by France and Great Britain were not very 
striking, the main end of the war, the preservation of the 
Ottoman empire, was unquestionably secured. Once again, 
in 1878, when Russia, in another war with Turkey, was about 
to crush the Sultan, Britain interfered and saved the Mo- 
hammedan state (Congress of Berlin, 1878). 

While these conflicts illustrate the rivalry between Great Great Britain 
Britain and Russia at Constantinople, their competition has in Asia. SSia 
been no less keen in Asia. Diplomatic incidents, more or 
less grave, have been frequent. A welcome event from the 



490 Great Britain in the Nineteenth Century 

British point of view was the recent rise of Japan. In the 
year 1902 England formed an alliance with Japan, which, 
driven to desperation by persistent Russian encroach- 
ments, was at length, in 1904, emboldened to declare war. 
Japan's great victories on land and sea enabled her to 
acquire a paramount position in Korea and in the Yellow 
Sea. These advantages were secured by the treaty of 
peace signed at Portsmouth (U. S.) in August, 1905. Even 
before the war was concluded riots had taken place in 
Russia, which presently culminated in a great revolutionary 
movement. In consequence the Russian Government was 
occupied with domestic affairs, and could exercise no pres- 
sure upon English interests either in Asia or elsewhere. 
Plainly the turmoil in Russia redounded to the decided 
advantage of Britain. By the eliminating process of time 
one after another of England's potential rivals in world 
empire had been stricken from the list, until at the time 
of the Russian revolution there apparently remained only 
Germany. This vigorous and youthful empire had lately 
girded its loins to share in the partition of the world, with 
the result that English public opinion now transferred its 
wakeful jealousy from St. Petersburg to Berlin. The for- 
eign policy of Great Britain was, with the new century, 
guided chiefly with reference to the growth and expansion 
of Germany. 
The sovereign The predominance of Parliament, achieved in the seven- 
nof govern teenth century, has not been questioned by the later sover- 
eigns, who have rested content with their honorary head- 
ship of the nation and the indefinable political influence 
commanded by it. The long reign (1837-1901) of Queen 
Victoria, a conspicuous lover of peace, came to an end 
amidst universal signs of sorrow. She was succeeded by 
Edward VII., her oldest son by her marriage with Prince 
Albert of Saxe-Coburg. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

RUSSIA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; THE OTTOMAN 
EMPIRE AND THE BALKAN QUESTION 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe {passim; see Index); 
Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 491-523; Seignobos, 
Europe Since 1815, Chapters XIX.-XXL; Andrews, 
Modern Europe, Vol. II., Chapter XIII. ; Rambaud, 
History of Russia, Vol. III.; Kennan, Siberia and 
the Exile System; Milyoukov, Russia and Its Crisis 
(a searching analysis of present Russian conditions); 
Kovalevsky, Russian Political Institutions. 

The part which Russia played in the overthrow of Na- CzarAlexaa- 
poleon made Czar Alexander I. a conspicuous figure in Eu- p iand. 
rope after 181 5. The Congress of Vienna confirmed him in 
the possession of Poland, which he ruled as king, on the 
basis of a granted constitution, as long as he lived. We have 
seen how under his successor, Nicholas I., the Poles revolted 
(1830) and had to pay for their audacity with the loss of 
their constitution and their independence. 

The Poles, however, were not the only foreign people Russia, a 
united with Russia under the sceptre of the Czar. The s tate^° Sene ° US 
grand-duchy of Finland was inhabited by Finns intersprin- 
kled with Swedes, while in the Baltic provinces were settled 
Letts and Esths, who tilled the soil for an upper crust of 
German landlords. Finland and the Baltic provinces, Rus- 
sian only in name, had preserved a measure of provincial 
self-government. That was not the case with the various 
Slav tribes — White Russians in the west, Little Russians in 

491 



492 



Russia in the Nineteenth Century 



the south — who had been incorporated with Russia by con- 
quest and were held under autocratic rule. Russia, even if 
we limit our statement to Russia in Europe, was therefore 
not a homogeneous nation, but consisted of a Russian core, 
surrounded, especially along its western border, by con- 
quered peoples in various stages of dependence. 

The people of the great Russian state were so backward 
in civilization that their domestic history in the nineteenth 
century can be rapidly told. Having no share in the gov- 
ernment, they hung upon the initiative of the Czar, who, if 
progressive, might do something to improve conditions; if 
reactionary, thought only of preserving his power. Alex- 
ander I. (1801-25), after disappointing many hopes, was 
followed by his brother, Nicholas I. (1825-55), of whose 
despotic disposition we have had a glimpse in the Polish 
revolution of 1830. He stood for conservatism, and ruled 
his country with a rod of iron. But he was followed by a 
man of a different temper, his humane son, Alexander II. 
(1855-81), who was persuaded that reforms were inevita- 
ble. His greatest service to his country was the emancipa- 
tion of the peasants. By the decree of 1861 the peasants, 
who were serfs and numbered many millions, constituting 
between eighty and ninety per cent of the population, 
were declared free, and provision was made by which 
they could become proprietors of small farms. As the va- 
rious local bodies were also given the right to govern them- 
selves, the people were for the first time raised to the full 
dignity of manhood, and Russian society was gradually 
transformed and modernized. Alexander was now urged 
to grant a constitution, but could not be persuaded to make 
this supreme concession. 

Apart from the emancipation of the serfs, and certain 
administrative and judicial reforms by which Russia was 
assimilated to European methods, the history of the state 



The Ottoman Empire and Balkan Question 493 

under the nineteenth century czars is a record of territo- 
rial expansion. This expansion took two directions: (1) 
F Toward the Bosporus, where it came in conflict with Tur- 
key; and (2) toward Asia, where it was opposed mainly 
by England. The movement of Russia toward Turkey 
obliges us to examine the Ottoman empire. 1 

The Turks, after establishing their rule in Asia Minor by The peoples 
gradual stages, had in the fifteenth century conquered the ^enmsufa. aa 
Balkan peninsula and set up their capital at Constantinople. 
The territory around the capital had been settled by Turks, 
but the other provinces remained in the hands of the various 
peoples who had occupied them in the Middle Ages. The 
most important, together with their geographical positions, 
were the following: (1) Greeks in the Grecian peninsula, in 
the islands of the ^Egean Sea, and along the Thracian coast; 
(2) J^uinafiians_north of the lower Danube; (3) Serbs south 
of the Danube, between that river and the Adriatic Sea; 
(4) Bulgarians on either side of the Balkan Mountains; (5) 
Albanians on the Adriatic coast. Of these tribes all were 
Slavs 1 except the Greeks and the Roumanians, and all were 
Christians, belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, except 
the Albanians, who to a large extent had gone over to the re- 
ligion of their Mohammedan conquerors. The government 
of the Turks was a typical Oriental despotism. The Sultan Thegovem- 
at Constantinople, kept in ludicrous ignorance of the affairs sultan, 
of his realm, was content if his subordinates forwarded the 
tribute necessary to support his harem, while the real power 
lay in the hands of the pashas, who stood at the head of the 
provinces and plundered the poor inhabitants at discretion. 
The Christians, whom centuries of oppression had reduced 

1 The Roumanians, although they speak a language akin to Italian, and 
hold that they are, as their name suggests, descended from Roman colonists, 
are probably largely a Dacian stock which has been Latinized. The Alba- 
nians, rough mountaineers, are the remnant of the original inhabitants of 
the Balkan peninsula, the old Illyrians. The racial situation on the Balkans 
is incredibly confused, 



494 Russia in the Nineteenth Century 



The first step 
toward Balkan 
freedom. 



New crises. 



to the level of brutes, were deprived of every human right 
except the exercise of their religion. Turkey in Europe, 
closely considered, was nothing more than a victorious band 
of warriors encamped among enslaved Christian peoples, who 
might presently arouse themselves and cast their tyrants off. 
And the awakening came. It came in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, seized people after people, and created what is called 
the Balkan or the eastern question. But no sooner were the 
Sultan's Christian subjects in revolt than the European pow- 
ers felt urged to declare their interest in the fact. They in- 
terfered and protected the small nations against the Sultan's 
wrath. Revolt, accompanied by European intervention, is 
the history of Turkey in the nineteenth century. 

The beginning was made, as we have already seen, by 
Greece. The Greeks, after a spirited resistance, were about 
to be crushed when the powers interfered, fought the battle 
of Navarino-(i82 7), and secured Greek independence. Out 
of the confusion developed a war between Russia and Tur- 
key, in which Russia was victorious (Peace of Adrianople, 
1829), and secured a paramount position at Constantinople. 
This war closed the first phase in the crumbling process 
of the Ottoman empire. Greece was now an independent 
kingdom, 1 while the Sultan withdrew from the direct govern- 
ment of Servia and the two Roumanian provinces, Wallachia 
and Moldavia, putting their administration in the hands of 
native princes. 

The next great event in Turkish history was the revolt of 
the cunning and powerful pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, 
against his suzerain at Constantinople. This was a conflict 
among Mohammedan believers. Mehemet defeated the 
Sultan in two great wars, fought between 1833 and 1840, 

1 The first king of Greece was Otto of Bavaria, who, after ruling auto- 
cratically for a period, granted (1843) a constitution. Twenty years later 
he wai deposed by a revolution, and was succeeded (1863) by a prince of 
the House of Denmark. This prince, King George I., ruled till 1913. 



The Ottoman Empire and Balkan Question 495 

and might have driven him from the Bosporus if the powers 
had not become alarmed and forced the pasha to release his 
prey. The incident showed the helpless decay of Turkey. 
Czar Nicholas, encouraged by this situation to plan for the 
peaceful partition of the realm, spoke on repeated occasions 
of "the sick man" and his approaching funeral; but when 
he found the other powers, especially England, determined 
to support the Sultan, he decided on a policy of active ag- 
gression. The result was the Crimean War (1853-55), The Crimean 
which is particularly interesting in showing the radical disa- 
greement of the European powers with regard to Turkey. 
The Russian aim of conquering and partitioning Turkey 
was opposed by England, which feared that the growth of 
the Russian power in the Mediterranean would threaten 
her position in India. England managed to communicate 
her alarm to France, with the result that the two western 
powers defended Turkey, defeated the Czar (SebastOpol, 
1855), and in the Peace of Paris (1856) guaranteed the 
integrity of the Ottoman empire. But all the tinkering of 
Turkey's friends could do no more than delay disruption. 
There were troubles in Crete, Syria, in short, wherever 
Christians came in contact with Mohammedans. Every 
year brought some new loss or disgrace to the Commander 
of the Faithful. Thus, when in 1859 the two provinces, Wal- Creation of 
lachia and Moldavia, self-governing since 1829, united un- oumama - 
der the name of Roumania, the Sultan had to give a 
belated consent; and wheii in 1866 a representative assem- 
bly elected Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (related 
to the reigning House of Prussia) hereditary prince, the suc- 
cessor of Mohammed was not even consulted. Such was 
the precarious situation in Turkey, when a revolt among 
the Serbs of Herzegovina led to another violent crisis. The 
Herzegovinians rose in 1875 against the Turkish tax-gather- 
ars, who plundered them with systematic and brutal cruelty, 



49<5 



Russia in the Nineteenth Century 



The war of 

1877. 



Victory of 
Russia. 



The Congress 
of Berlin, 



and were presently aided by their brethren of the province of 
Servia. A wave of excitement swept over the eastern world. 
The Russians, themselves Slav and Orthodox, were greatly 
agitated, and Alexander II., in spite of his love of peace, 
was moved to take the field (1877). Thus was initiated the 
third war waged, since the Congress of Vienna, between 
Russia and Turkey. 

In this war England did not actively support Turkey, 
while the small Slav states of the Balkan peninsula, as far 
as they were free to act, gladly joined with Russia. The 
fate of the campaign hinged upon the siege of Plevna. 
This fortress was fiercely and skilfully defended by Osman 
Pasha; but on the failure of provisions he and his army 
were obliged to surrender (December 10, 1877). Nothing 
now arrested the victorious Russians. They crossed the 
Balkans and would have floated their banners from the 
minarets of Constantinople if the Sultan had not sued for 
peace. In March, 1878, were signed the articles of San 
Stefano by which the Turk lost all his European posses- 
sions except Albania and the territory around Constanti- 
nople. England, gravely alarmed over this increase of Rus- 
sian influence, assumed a warlike tone and refused to be 
placated until the Czar agreed to have the treaty Of San 
Stefano revised in a general meeting of the European powers. 

The Congress of Berlin, held in June, 1878, marks a new 
epoch in the history of Turkey. Although the congress 
could not undo the defeat of the Sultan, it could and did, 
under the leadership of England, reduce the advantages of 
Russia. The principle upon which the anti-Russian faction 
acted was to secure the independence of the Christian peo- 
ples of the Balkans under the guarantee, not of Russia, but 
of all the European powers. The congress finally agreed 
upon the following measures: (1) Roumania, Servia, and 
Montenegro were declared free and sovereign. Prince 



^ ^^vHerzeg -/''l \ P-. Nissa\o V „ / ° Plevna Shumla 



v>> 



'«m e 



^ 



Beijfe, 






<J> 



'\3ientd 






i t'skub 



c^JallipoJ4<J^r\ < 




itmijtluA 



30° Greenwich 



THE 

BALKAN PENINSULA 

after the Treaty of Berlin. 



SCALE OP MILES. 
' as 60 100 1S0 900 9^0 



j?) KVaterinoslB* 



K f „ of Azof J 
Crimea j^^Rerich? 



^ 



B A 



Iretrizo' 10 ' 



k 




°X)rfa 



1 Diartetit 




•jSos«- A 



, Aleppo 
' A^tioch 'Euphrates < 



(, Beirut y 

o Datt&scua 



^aka 



bU 



The Ottoman Empire and Balkan Question 497 

Charles of Roumania presently became King Charles L, 
while the native prince of Servia, Milan Obrenovitch, be- 
came King Milan I. Montenegro, a tiny principality of 
Serbs, located in the almost inaccessible mountains which 
skirt the Adriatic, had really never been subdued by the Ot- 
toman empire, and was now formally declared independent 
under its native prince Nikita. (2) A number of other prov- 
inces were practically but not theoretically detached from 
the Turkish empire. Austria was asked to occupy Herze- 
govina and Bosnia, but as no limit of time was fixed, the oc- 
cupation soon acquired a look of permanence. Bulgaria was 
divided into two sections. The region between the Danube 
and the Balkans was declared a self-governing principality 
owing allegiance to the Sultan, while the section south of the 
Balkans, officially called East Roumelia, was left under the 
military authority of the Turks. (3) Russia received an in- 
crease of territory in Asia Minor. This was hardly an ade- 
quate reward for her exertions and her victory, and created 
an indignation in Russia against the settlement of Berlin 
which survived for many a day. 

It remains to inquire into the success of the Berlin policy The growth 
and the development of the new Balkan states. With due Balkanstates. 
allowance for the difficulties of the situation, the statement 
may be ventured that the young governments have pros- 
pered. Among the regulations which proved untenable was 
the division of Bulgaria. In 1885 the southern section — 
East Roumelia — revolted and applied for union with the 
northern province. When the ruler of Bulgaria, Prince 
Alexander of Battenberg, who had been lately elected to the 
throne, yielded to the popular pressure and accepted the 
union of north and south, Servia, angry at the increase of 
her neighbor, declared war. The incident introduces us to 
anew and important feature in the Balkan situation. The 
young Christian states regard one another with the most in- 



498 



Russia in the Nineteenth Century 



Present storm 
centres of the 
Turkish 
empire 



tense jealousy, each one hoping, in the event of the further 
dissolution of the Ottoman empire, to secure the lion's 
share. The war of 1885 supplies the comment to this 
statement. Servia was roundly beaten, and owed her pre- 
servation to the interference of Austria. But Prince Alex- 
ander did not long enjoy his triumphs. He had given um- 
brage to Czar Alexander III., who in 1886 compassed his 
downfall. The Bulgarians, indignant over this interference 
with their affairs, now cut loose from the Czar's apron- 
strings, and elected as their prince Ferdinand of Coburg, 
an officer in the Austrian army. Ferdinand soon consol- 
idated his position and at the beginning of the twentieth 
century seemed in a fair way to perpetuate his dynasty. 
The troubles of the diminished Turkish empire have not 
ceased, owing chiefly to the fact that the Christians remain- 
ing under the Mohammedan yoke continue to ask for re- 
lief. The chief centres of disturbance of late have been (1) 
Crete, (2) Armenia, and (3) Macedonia. (1) The endless 
revolutions in Crete, an island inhabited by Greeks, kept 
the people of the kingdom of Greece in sympathetic excite- 
ment, and led in 1897 to a declaration of war against 
Turkey. The small power proved no match for Turkey, 
which quickly defeated it; however, Europe interfered, 
and not only saved Greece from spoliation, but also made 
Crete self-governing under a Greek prince. The Cretans, 
in spite of their virtual independence, continued to demand 
union with Greece, but, owing to the opposition of the 
powers, did not achieve it till 1913. (2) The Armenians, 
Christians of Asia Minor, are desirous of achieving their 
independence, but the agitation among them is carefully 
watched by the Turks and from time to time repressed by a 
terrible massacre. The outrages committed by the "red 
Sultan" upon the Armenians have aroused the indignation 
of Europe; but no cure has thus far been found for the evil. 



The Ottoman Empire and the Balkan Question 499 

(3) The same may be said for the troubles in Macedonia. 
This province — the last Christian possession of the Sultan 
in Europe — has been in a state of increasing ferment; but 
a solution is rendered difficult, owing to fierce race jealousy. 
Macedonia is inhabited by Bulgarians, Serbs, and Greeks, 
who are quite as ready to butcher one another as to fight 
the common enemy, the Turk. 

These various events, all pointing to the eventual dissolu- The British 
tion of Turkey, do not complete the tale of the Sultan's occupy gyp ' 
misery. In 1882 England occupied Egypt with an army, 
and although the pasha — ruling under the title of khedive — 
was not deposed and the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan 
continued to be acknowledged, Egypt may be counted a 
British province. Nobody will venture to say how all these 
various issues will be settled; but the assertion is not over- 
bold that the end of Turkey, corrupt, backward, incapable 
of reform, has been decreed by the fates. 

The establishment of numerous small independent states The Russian 
upon the ruins of Turkey in Europe tended to put a check Ask! 
upon the Russian march to Constantinople. In conse- 
quence, the Czars began to take up with increased vigor their 
plan of conquest in Asia. In the course of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries they had acquired Siberia, embrac- 
ing the whole north of that great continent; and in the nine- 
teenth century they have striven to reach a warm port, with 
open water all the year round, upon the Pacific and Indian 
oceans. Although their progress has been steadily opposed 
by England, which was seized with alarm for its Indian em- 
pire, the Russian advance met with continued success, until 
it was challenged by Japan. A glance at the map will show 
that Russia would attempt to reach the ocean in the region of 
the Persian Gulf and the Sea of China. When England let 
it be understood that she would fight before she would per- 
mit her rival to get a lodgment in the waters west of India, 



500 Russia in the Nineteenth Century 



The war with 
Japan. 



Domestic 
troubles of 
Russia. 



The Polish 
rebellion of 
1863. 



The educated 
movement for 
a constitution. 



the energy of Russian expansion was unloaded upon weak 
and unresisting China. The Czar acquired control of a 
considerable slice of Chinese territory (Port Arthur, Man- 
churia), causing such consternation in the neighboring em- 
pire of Japan that the Mikado, after many futile remon- 
strances, declared war. The conflict (1904-5) showed the 
decisive superiority of the Japanese upon land and water. 
At the Peace of Portsmouth (August, 1905) Russia was 
obliged to withdraw from her advanced positions, and 
Port Arthur, southern Manchuria, and Korea fell under 
the influence of Japan. The forward movement of Russia 
in Asia was blocked for many a day. 

The grave crisis which now befell Russia was due not 
so much to her defeat by Japan, as to the domestic revo- 
lution which broke out during the war. To understand this 
important movement we must turn back once more to the 
reign of the kindly Alexander II. Although the Czar had 
liberated the serfs in 1861, he disappointed many of his peo- 
ple by refusing to grant a constitution. The Poles had even 
persuaded themselves that he was going to grant them not 
only a constitution, but their independence; and on awaken- 
ing from their illusion, they rose in rebellion (1863). Of 
course they were crushed, as in 183 1, but the movement 
served as an announcement to the world that their national 
sentiment was still alive. Once again the Poles were ground 
under the iron heel of the Czar, their very language being 
banished from the schools, the court-room, and even from 
public sign-boards. 

In Russia proper the liberal discontent with the continued 
maintenance of the autocratic system took a different form. 
The radicals, more and more enraged at the Czar and his 
bureaucracy, adopted the anarchistic views spread by cer- 
tain revolutionists in western Europe, and under the name 
of nihilists sought the destruction by any and every means 



The Ottoman Empire and Balkan Question 501 

of the detested government. Attacks upon prominent offi- 
cials with pistol and bomb became frequent, culminating in 
188 1 in the assassination of the once popular Alexander II. 
He was succeeded by his son, Alexander III. (1881-94), 
who stubbornly maintained his absolute power and met 
the plots of his opponents by wholesale banishments to the 
lonely and noisome prisons of ice-bound Siberia. By the 
time Nicholas II. succeeded (1894) his father, the liberal 
propaganda had begun to assume another shape. Al- 
though a band of radicals continued to terrorize society 
with bombs and assassination, the middle classes and the 
workingmen of the cities — the latter largely organized as 
socialists — came to believe their cause would triumph by 
more peaceful means. Their chance came during the war The present 
with Japan. The defeats suffered by the Russian govern- 
ment encouraged criticism, which the authorities tried to 
appease by concessions. Finally, in October, 1905, the 
Czar went the length of proclaiming a constitution, em- 
bodying a limited number of popular concessions. But 
it was too late. The accumulated excitement burst in riots 
and rebellions, which threatened the life of the monarchy. 
In May, 1906, a popular Assembly, called Duma, was con- 
vened, but the Czar dissolved it in July before it had 
effected any changes. Nicholas II. stood, in 1906, at the 
parting of the ways, apparently undecided whether he 
should follow the liberal path or that of the traditional ab- 
solutism. While the situation was frightfully involved, it 
seemed reasonably certain that the old, uncompromising 
autocracy could never be restored, and that a new era 
had dawned in Russia. 



CHAPTER XXV 



Unsatisfactory 
economic situ- 
ation, espe- 
cially in the 
south. 



CENTRAL EUROPE FROM THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY 

AND GERMANY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH 

CENTURY 

References: Seignobos, Europe Since 1814, Chapter 
VII.; Chapter XL, pp. 361-72; Chapters XVI., XVII.; 
Phillips, Modern Europe, Chapter XX.; Andrews, 
Modern Europe, Vol. II., Chapters IX.-XIL; Lowell, 
Governments and Parties in Continental Europe; 
Stillman, Union of Italy; King and Okey, Italy To- 
day; Whitman, Imperial Germany; Whitman, Austria. 

Italy. 

Italy had no sooner achieved her unity under King Vic- 
tor Emmanuel than she became seriously occupied with 
pressing domestic affairs. Everything in the disturbed and 
backward peninsula had to be done from the beginning. 
Accordingly the new government created a centralized ad- 
ministration, devised a judicial and an educational system, 
and called an army and a navy into being. This upbuild- 
ing of the state in accordance with modern demands 
cost unfortunately a great deal of money and obliged the 
government to impose numerous and burdensome taxes. 
Even so, the expenditure habitually exceeded the revenues, 
creating a financial problem with which ministry after min- 
istry wrestled in vain for several decades. It was not til] 
the end of the century that the situation was relieved and 
the deficit mastered. 

In every country the financial problem is closely associated 
with the general economic situation. To understand the 
domestic affairs of Italy one must begin with the fact that 
the country, though perhaps the most beautiful under 

502 



The Unification of Italy and Germany 503 

the sun, is poor. It has few mineral resources, above all, 
no coal and iron, and is largely dependent on agriculture. 
Furthermore, although the farming methods of the north, 
where there is an intelligent and active peasantry, are rap- 
idly improving, the south lags far behind and is disturbed 
by an almost permanent agricultural crisis. The trouble in 
the southern parts is due to the fact that the land is owned 
by great proprietors, while the work is done by hired la- 
borers, ground down by centuries of tyranny. The misery 
of this section, increased by excessive taxation, has led, on 
the one hand, to emigration on an immense scale to North 
and South America, and, on the other, to bread riots and 
political discontent. The result has been the growth of the 
republican and socialist parties, not only in the south, it is 
true, but also among the workingmen of the northern cities; 
and although the monarchy still enjoys the favor of the 
vast majority, it finds itself obliged to make constant con- 
cessions to the strong radical parties of the Parliament. 
The main task before the government at the opening of 
the twentieth century was to find relief for the growing 
wretchedness and discontent of the millions of southern 
tillers of the soil and for the thousands of workingmen in 
the industrial centres of the north. 

A grave problem has always been the relation of Church Latent war 
and state. The Pope has declared himself irreconcilable, clurchand 
and since the capture of Rome in 1870 has chosen to live as state - 
a prisoner in the Vatican palace. The law of the Italian 
Parliament (Laws of the Guarantees, 1870-1), by which he 
was assured the honors and immunities of a sovereign, the 
possession of the Vatican and Lateran palaces, and a con- 
siderable income, has never been acknowledged by him, 
and the Italian state has been steadily ignored and de- 
nounced. Naturally, the government has responded to this 
set hostility with repressive legislation. The rich possessions 



5<H 



Central Europe 



Italy allies 
herself with 
Germany. 



Colonial vent- 
ures and 
disasters. 



of the Church have been secularized and sold and the clergy 
compensated with meagre salaries, paid out of the national 
treasury. When and how the Pope and king are to be rec- 
onciled and the latent war between them brought to a close, 
no one can foretell. 

A word about Italian foreign affairs. Italy, from her po- 
sition, is interested, above all, in the Mediterranean; and 
when in 1881 France seized Tunis, she became alarmed 
and resolved to insure herself against further French prog- 
ress in Africa by cultivating the friendship of Germany. 
Negotiations with Germany, a power already closely bound 
to Austria, led to the formation in 1883 of the Triple Alli- 
ance. The Triple Alliance was defensive in character, and 
on the strength of its subsequent record may be declared 
to have been true to its avowed purpose of maintaining the 
peace. Encouraged by the support of the central powers, 
Italy presently entered upon a colonial policy in Africa, in 
the neighborhood of the Red Sea, with the usual consequence 
of becoming engaged in distant wars, coupled with several 
serious disasters (defeat at Adowa by the Abyssinians, 1896). 
In spite of the enumerated difficulties — the colonial failures, 
the excessive taxation, the agricultural misery of the south, 
the growth of socialism in the cities — every Italian may 
take a legitimate pride in the evident signs of a growing 
unity, order, and prosperity. 



France. 



The republic is 
established. 



We have seen how the disastrous war of France with Ger- 
many (1870-71) gave birth to a new republican government 
(the Third Republic), upon which fell not only the burden 
of making peace with the victorious foe, but also of putting 
down the savage rising of the Parisian communists. The 
elections of February, 187 1, held under the depressing in- 



Since the Unification of Italy and Germany 505 

fluence of defeat, had returned an Assembly with a strong 
monarchical majority. As soon as peace had been made 
with the new German Empire and the communists had been 
overthrown, the Assembly took up the problem of organizing 
a new government. If the monarchical majority could have 
immediately united upon a candidate for the throne, they 
might have restored the monarchy without delay; but the 
party of the legitimists wished to call back the older branch 
of the House of Bourbon, the party of the Orleanists planned 
to restore the grandson of Louis Philippe, and the party of 
the imperialists supported the son of Napoleon III. Not 
till 1873 did the legitimists and Orleanists agree by recog- 
nizing the heir of Charles X., who, born in 1823, was now 
fifty years old, and was known as the count of Chambord. 
But the count of Chambord, stubbornly refusing to recog- 
nize the tricolor flag (red, blue, white) as the emblem of 
France, insisted upon the white banner of the Bourbons, and 
upon this rock the whole restoration foundered. New elec- 
tions held to fill vacancies increased the number of the 
republicans, who presently began to put the conservative 
forces to rout. They managed to have a number of con- 
stitutional laws passed (1873-75) by which the republic was 
definitely established and the power vested in (1) a Chamber 
of deputies, elected by universal suffrage; (2) a Senate, 
elected by special bodies in the departments; and (3) a 
president, elected for seven years by Senate and Chamber 
in a common session. When the Assembly at last dissolved 
itself and new elections were held (1876), the republicans 
were returned in crushing majority. The next year the 
Senate became republican, too, and now nothing but the 
presidency remained in the hands of the monarchists. The 
first president had been Thiers (1871-73), a very moderate 
man, who, for the very reason of his moderation, had in 1873 
been obliged to give way to Marshall MacMahon, a thorough- 



506 



Central Europe 



Democratic 
measures. 



Troubles with 
the Church. 



going monarchist. MacMahon presented a bold front to 
the rising tide of republicanism till 1879, when, con- 
vinced that his cause was hopeless, he made way for a 
radical, Grevy. Thus, after the struggle of a decade, the 
republicans had acquired and have since retained the three 
organs of political power. 

The republican regime has succeeded in thoroughly de- 
mocratizing France. The government has established an 
army on the basis of universal military service, as in Ger- 
many; it has begun to decentralize the power by making the 
municipal authorities elective; and it has created a system 
of public education on the broad foundation of a gratuitous 
and compulsory primary instruction. Of course, with so 
many explosive forces stored up as in France, the path of 
the republic has not been strewn with roses. The army, 
officered by men of the upper classes, has sometimes shown 
signs of disobedience, and on several occasions, notably 
under instigation from General Boulanger (1887-89), has 
threatened to take matters into its own hands. Still greater 
danger than from the army has threatened from the clergy. 

The general democratic drift was by no means to the lik- 
ing of the Roman Catholic clergy, traditionally linked to the 
cause of monarchy. Under the prudent guidance of Pope 
Leo XIII. the French clergy "rallied" for a time around the 
republic, but a renewed and definite breach took place when 
the government developed its educational policy. Educa- 
tion had hitherto been a prerogative of the Church, which 
by means of its schools had moulded the youth of the nation. 
Therefore, when the attempt was made to organize a pub- 
lic-school system of lay teachers under the direct control of 
the state, the clergy showed signs of growing resentment. 
In the end a clash ensued between Church and state, which 
has finally led to a complete falling out of the former part- 
ners. In 1 90 1 the government began to close the schools 



Since the Unification of Italy and Germany 507 

maintained by the religious orders, and proceeding step by 
step, ended (1905) by cancelling the agreement of 1801 (the 
Concordat) with Rome. Church a(nd state in France are 
now entirely separated, as in the United States, and the 
state will presently cease paying the salaries of priests and 
bishops. Further, by the Separation Act the state has ap- 
propriated the churches and cathedrals, but declares itself 
ready to deliver them over to religious congregations, 
formed according to the terms of the law. In August, 1906, 
the Pope refused in a letter to the French bishops to sanc- 
tion these congregations, thus openly declaring that a state 
of war exists between Rome and the government. There 
the matter rests: The state has affirmed its sovereign and 
democratic character, but in appropriating public education 
and in disestablishing the Church it has offended the Pope 
to the point where he seems inclined to resist to the utmost. 

Meanwhile, the foreign policy of the republic has been The alliance 
largely governed by antagonism to Germany. During the 
early years of the Third Republic, France remained isolated, 
and by the creation of the Triple Alliance in 1883 seemed to 
be put into a distinctly inferior position. But relief was at 
hand. Russia, angered by the settlement of Berlin (1878), 
was drifting away from her traditional friendship with Ger- 
many, and presently made friendly overtures to France. 
Early in the nineties the growing intimacy took the form 
of an alliance, which has tended to restore French confi- 
dence a'nd prestige. 

But even before the Russian friendship was assured, France Colonial 
had taken up with success a policy of colonial expansion. "P*" 81011, 
She has acquired Madagascar, Annam in Farther India, Ton- 
kin in southern China — not, of course, without expense and 
bloodshed — and she has unfurled her flag over a consider- 
able section of Africa. Africa, being nearer home, is the chief 
object of her attention, and the African policy of the repub- 



5o8 



Central Eiirope 



The greatness 
and weakness 
of France. 



lie has taken the form of amassing as large an empire as 
possible around Algiers, the splendid province acquired in 
1830. We have seen how the seizure of Tunis (1881) raised 
a question between France and Italy; but far from being 
content with Tunis, the government has pushed its claims 
over the Sahara and the northwest until only the Mohamme- 
dan empire of Morocco remained independent. This for- 
ward movement in Africa, persisted in throughout the cen- 
tury, was watched with alarm not only by Italy, but also 
by England, which, after its occupation of Egypt in 1882, 
looked upon the Nile valley as its particular domain. Con- 
stant diplomatic friction was at last effectively allayed by 
an agreement of April, 1904, which, generally speaking, as- 
signed the whole northwest, including Morocco, to France 
as her sphere of influence, and in return conceded the Nile 
region to Great Britain. 

Since the German war France has established the republic 
upon solid foundations; she has created a democratic army 
and a democratic school-system, free from clerical influence; 
and she has enlarged her colonial dominion; nevertheless, 
she does not play as important a role as before 1870. 
The reason is not to be found in any falling off of her 
moral integrity or industrial efficiency, but solely in the 
fact that her population has become practically stationary. 



Bismarck in 
control. 



Germany. 

The proclamation of William, king of Prussia, as em- 
peror, coupled with the completion of the German Empire, 
gave Bismarck, the creator of German unity, a position of 
unassailable authority. To his post of prime minister of 
Prussia he added that of chancellor or head, under the em- 
peror, of the federal government. For the next twenty years 
he towered like a giant over German political life. The fed- 



Since the Unification of Italy and Germany 509 

eral constitution, a compromise of Prussian autocracy and 
German liberalism, left the sovereign in control of the army, 
the administration, and the ministry; the Reichstag voted the 
budget and made the laws. While the chancellor was there- 
fore secure against overthrow by an adverse Parliamentary 
vote, he was reduced to finding a majority for a desired 
measure by bargaining with the various parties. He began 
by an alliance with the liberals, whose programme, in the 
main, he adopted. With their aid he was engaged in en- 
dowing the new federation with such necessary modern 
institutions as a system of coinage (its unit the mark = 24 
cents), the French metric system of weights and measures, 
and a uniform system of judicature, when he fell into a 
quarrel, known as the Culturkampj (war for civilization), 
with the Roman Catholic Church. 

We have seen that Italy and France — and it is true of The quarrel 
almost every other European country — quarrelled with the church and 
Catholic Church during the second half of the nineteenth state > l8 7 I -7Q- 
century. The main issue has usually been the control of 
education. In Germany figured some additional features, 
especially the claim of the Church to be exempt from all 
interference on the part of the state. The Catholics, who 
form a minority in Germany, stood solidly together in and 
outside the Reichstag, and although the state passed several 
severe laws curtailing the authority of the clergy, Bismarck 
was at last obliged to sound a retreat. The Catholic polit- 
ical party, called the Centre, not only succeeded in getting 
most of the legislation against the Church repealed, but also 
in acquiring a leading position in German public life. On 
the great question of education a compromise was reached 
by which the state retained charge of the schools, but made 
religion an obligatory subject, handing over the Catholic in- 
struction to the Catholic clergy and the Protestant instruc- 
tion to the Protestant ministers. 



510 Central Europe 



Industry and Economically, the most significant fact in modern Ger- 
mocracy" many is the progress of commerce and industry. German 

manufactures, stimulated by the exploitation of the iron 
and coal deposits along the Rhine and in Silesia, entered 
into competition with those of England and the United 
States, and German commerce experienced an amazing ad- 
vance. A social consequence was the marvellous growth 
of the cities, whose swarming masses naturally banded to- 
gether for the purpose of improving their position by 
political action. Organized by clever leaders — Lasalle, 
Liebknecht, Bebel — as the social-democratic party, the 
workingmen have steadily pressed toward the double ideal 
of a pure democracy and the control by the community of 
the means of production. The growth of the social-democ- 
racy has been uninterrupted; beginning with the Reich- 
stag elections of 1903 it cast more votes than any other 
party. This rise of a revolutionary faction, prepared to 
overthrow not only the monarchy but also the capitalistic 
middle class, greatly alarmed the government, and in the 
early eighties led Bismarck to turn his attention to the 
labor question. With characteristic ingenuity he adopted 
a programme of state socialism, devised to win the attach- 
ment of the workingmen. He had laws passed by which 
the state undertook to insure the laboring classes against 
accident, sickness, and old age; but even after this insur- 
ance system had been in successful operation for several 
decades, it had not shaken the loyalty of its beneficiaries 
toward the party of revolution. Upon the social-democ- 
racy hinges the future of Germany. The monarchical idea 
continued, at the beginning of the twentieth century, to 
enjoy the support of the older classes but its hold on the 
workingmen had become slight indeed. Plainly Germany 
was heading for a storm. 

In foreign affairs Germany has played an important part 
since her defeat of France. Bismarck, past-master in the 



Since the Unification of Italy and Germany 51 1 

art of diplomacy, did not fail to see that he must secure his 
country first of all against its late enemy. He succeeded in 
forming the league of the three emperors of Russia, Austria, 
and Germany, which lasted until the Balkan war of 1877. 
Such a league of course made Germany unassailable, but 
it came to an end when, after the Congress of Berlin (1878), 
Russia showed an inclination to ascribe the hostile enact- 
ments of that gathering to Germany and Austria. There- 
upon Bismarck formed a close alliance with the cabinet of The policy of 
Vienna (1879). The admission of Italy into this compact Triple 
created the famous Triple Alliance (1883), which was sev- A1 ^ ailce - 
eral times renewed on the basis of a common obligation 
to further the maintenance of the European peace. The 
Triple Alliance of the central powers and the Dual Alliance 
of their eastern and western neighbors made Europe on the 
surface look like a camp ready to bristle with arms at a 
moment's notice, but, deeply considered, these arrange- 
ments, by establishing a nearly even balance of power, may 
have operated to promote peace. Great Britain, hovering 
upon the outskirt of these great peace leagues, at first 
favored the Triple Alliance, but, increasingly alarmed 
over the rapid growth of Germany, beginning with the 
twentieth century showed an ever waxing inclination to 
rally to the side of France. 

Old Emperor William died in 1888 at the ripe age of nine- William II. 
ty-one. He was succeeded by his son Frederick, already 
stricken with a mortal disease, and after a few weeks by his 
grandson, William II. William II., an active, talented, 
and religious sovereign with strong autocratic leanings, was 
resolved not only to rule but also to govern. He soon dis- 
missed Bismark (1890), because he was not inclined to be 
overtopped by a mere subject, and then by a policy of 
speeches at banquets and similar occasions entered actively 
into all the questions of the day. He initiated many re- 



$12 Central Europe 



forms, some good, others indifferent; he exhibited an un- 
flagging interest in commerce, manufactures, science, and 
the fine arts; he called a strong German navy into being; 
but by putting himself persistently forward he made him- 
self also the main object of attack within and without his 
dominion. Although he dug deeper the chasm between 
the monarchy and the socialists, he long continued to 
hold the affection of the middle classes, and at the begin- 
ning of the new century seemed to occupy a strong position. 

A ustria-Hungary. 

Federalism On the heels of the failure of the revolution of 1848 the 

centralization, government of the young emperor, Francis Joseph, returned 
to the Metternichian system, which locked Austria in the 
prison of absolutism for the next ten years. But the un- 
fortunate Italian campaign of 1859 brought an awakening. 
The emperor himself saw the necessity of change and pub- 
lished a solemn promise to admit the people to a share in 
public affairs. In what form was this to be done? Two 
courses seemed to be open: (1) To declare the various prov- 
inces of the Hapsburg dominion self-governing, each with 
its own Parliament but subject to the common sovereign — 
this the federal system; and (2) to weld the provinces as 
closely together as possible and make them subject to a na- 
tional Parliament and administration at Vienna — this the 
system of centralization. The former plan was favored by 
the Slav groups — Czechs, Poles, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs — 
who felt that it contained a guarantee of their national exist- 
ence ; the latter by the Germans, who wished to retain their 
historical predominance. The Hungarians would accept 
neither of the two systems, and after a period of hesitation 
and conflict (1860-67) decided the issue according to their 
special demands. 



Since the Unification of Italy and Germany 513 

The Hungarians declared that as an independent nation The dual em- 
they were interested neither in Slav federalism nor in German Hungary 155 n 
centralization, but wanted singly and solely a recognition of created > l86 7- 
their ancient constitution, suppressed after their defeat in 
1849. So firmly did they comport themselves that Francis 
Joseph at last gave way. Having in 1867 declared the Hun- 
garian constitution again in vigor, he was crowned at Buda- 
pest as king of Hungary. At the same time the kingdom of 
Hungary entered into an agreement with the rest of the Haps- 
burg monarchy to regard a certain number of affairs, such 
as diplomacy, the army and navy, the national debt, the 
coinage, the customs tariff, as common to both contracting 
parties. Thus was called into being the dual system indi- 
cated in the official designation of Austria-Hungary, and con- 
stituting an unclassifiable novelty among political creations. 
It is plainly more than a personal union, and yet, on the other 
hand, less than a close federation, as the agreement on most 
matters (coinage, customs) has to be renewed from decade 
to decade, and the agreement on no matter, not even on the 
army and navy, is perpetual. Judging this scheme of dual- 
ism by its record, a student can give it at best but a qualified 
approval. The two halves of the monarchy have quarrelled 
constantly, some of the agreements have been permitted to 
lapse, and the refusal of the emperor to grant certain new 
demands of the Hungarians, touching the abolition of the 
German language in the Hungarian half of the common 
army, led in the year 1905 to a condition in Hungary which 
can only be described as latent revolution. At the begin- 
ning of the new century it seemed likely that the dual sys- 
tem would have to be reformed or abandoned. 

The idea behind the arrangement of 1867 was the supre- Hungarian 
macy of the Hungarians and the Germans, in the east and Hungary! 
west respectively, at the expense of the Slavs. In Hungary, 
taken together with its dependent provinces of Croatia 



5i4 



Central Europe 



Austria-Hun- 
gary interested 
chiefly in the 
Balkans. 



and Transylvania, the Hungarians did not constitute one- 
half of the population, but such was their patriotic vigor 
and political unscrupulousness that they successfully main- 
tained their ascendency till the Great War. Austria, which 
was denned as including all the Hapsburg dominions not 
assigned to Hungary — that is, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, 
Lower Austria, Tyrol, etc. — has led a very stormy life since 
the dual settlement. The Germans, though traditionally 
in control, constituted only a strong minority, and partly 
from lack of homogeneity, partly from lack of support 
on the part of the emperor and his government, were 
obliged to relax their hold. The trouble lay in the in- 
ability of Francis Joseph to make up his mind definitely 
about the old issue of federalism versus centralization. Af- 
ter supporting for a time the centralized system, which nat- 
urally favored the Germans, as it confirmed their rule over 
non-German provinces, Francis Joseph turned in 1879 to 
the federalists, who in' varying combination were at the 
helm until October, 1918, and who, although they did 
not dissolve the Austrian state, steadily pursued their 
federalist objects, thereby putting the Germans on the de- 
fensive. The struggle of the various nationalities 1 in Aus- 
tria and Hungry, but especially in Austria, was intense and 
uninterrupted, and would have long ago led to a complete 
dissolution of the Hapsburg dominion, if it had not been 
for the pressure of two circumstances. All the nationalities 
united in loyalty to the Hapsburg dynasty; and however 
much they quarreled, they balked at separation for 
fear that something worse might befall them. 

The tale of the Austro-Hungarian foreign policy is soon 
told. Since Austria's exclusion from Germany (1866) her 

1 The census of 1890 gives the following figures for the leading nation- 
alities: Germans, 10,600,000; Hungarians, 7,500,000; Czechs, 7,400,000; 
Ruthenians, 3,500,000; Poles, 3,700,000; Serbs and Croatians, 3,300,000; 
Roumanians, 2,800,000; Italians, 700,000. 



Since the Unification of Italy and Germany 515 

chief interest has lain in the Balkans, where she naturally 
came into rivalry with Russia. At the Congress of Berlin 
(1878) she received, like almost everybody else, a piece of 
the Sultan's cloak in the shape of the provinces of Bosnia 
and Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary was asked to admin- 
ister these territories provisionally under the sovereignty of 
the Sultan, but nobody doubted that the occupation was 
permanent. As the rivalry with Russia had by reason of 
this step grown acute, Francis Joseph concluded (1879) the 
treaty with Germany which in 1883, by the accession of 
Italy grew into the Triple Alliance. 

By the beginning of the twentieth century the future The future of 
of Austria-Hungary had become one of the grave problems Hungary. 
of Europe. It was clear that if the monarchy fell apart 
into its component nationalities, the nationalities them- 
selves and their stronger neighbors would enter upon a 
period of intensive struggle. A similar movement had 
followed the disruption of the Ottoman empire. While no 
one could foresee what the future would bring, there was 
as good as no probability that anything would happen to 
strengthen the shaky Hapsburg structure. On the other 
hand, the ancient loyalty to the ruling dynasty and the 
conservatism inherent in the blood of men might cause 
the warring nationalities to refrain from taking an irre- 
trievable step and thus secure for the monarchy an in- 
definite extension of a precarious tenure. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE MINOR STATES OF EUROPE 

The minor states of Europe have of course shared in the 
great movements of the nineteenth century and show a 
development along the same lines as the great powers. 
Their history manifests, in the realm of politics, the progress 
of democracy; in economics, the increase of wealth and 
population through the application of science to industry 
and commerce; and in the relation of classes, an improved 
organization of the workingmen coupled with a leaning 
toward socialist views. These movements are modified in 
each country by its special situation. 

A. Spain. 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe, Chapters XIV., 
XVII.; Seignobos, Europe Since 1814, Chapter X., 
pp. 286-319; Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 127-30, 
462; M. A. S. Hume, Modern Spain (1788-1898). 

The return of The political history of Spain in the nineteenth century 
e our ons. . g a dreary story of misgovernment and revolution. We 
have seen that when Ferdinand VII., the Bourbon monarch, 
came back after the fall of Napoleon, he straightway 
repudiated the liberal party, which had been fostered on the 
ideas of the French Revolution and had during the War of 
Independence drawn up a constitution (181 2). Then he re* 
established the absolute regime of his ancestors even to 
the point of calling the hated Inquisition from the tomb. 

5«6 



The Minor States of Europe 517 

His contemptible conduct caused the revolution of 1820, 
which after a short liberal triumph led to the French inter- 
vention of 1823 and to the restoration of the tyranny of 
Ferdinand. We have also seen how the support of the 
Holy Alliance, so effective on the Continent of Europe, 
proved of no avail toward the conquest of the Spanish- 
American colonies, and how these, in spite of Ferdinand's 
protest, entered upon a career of independence. 

But misgovernment at home and the loss of South America Civil war 
does not complete the tale of the misery wrought by the 
wretched king. Even in his death he became a curse to his 
country by creating a succession issue. He left his crown, 
when he died in 1833, to his infant daughter Isabella, under 
the regency of her mother Christina, thereby setting aside 
his brother Carlos, who considered himself the legal heir. 
The result was a civil war of Christinists against Carlists, 
which lasted until Carlos, after seven years of fighting, was 
driven from the country (1840). By that time civil war had 
become a national habit and now broke out among the 
victors. The dreary struggle is apparently without rhyme 
or reason, but, closely scanned, will reveal at its core the 
momentous question: shall Spain retain her feudal and 
absolute shackles or shall she cast them off and enter upon 
the path of modern constitutionalism? Christina, the regent, 
and Queen Isabella after her, published and annulled con- 
stitutions, made and broke promises, compounded with this 
and that group of politicians, until the feeble and dishonest 
game was at an end and Queen Isabella had to flee abroad 
before a popular rising (1868). A period followed of vain 
experimentation; in reality the country passed into the 
hands of successive dictators. During the ascendancy of 
the Generals Serrano and Prim the crown was offered (1870) 
to Leopold of Hohenzollern, producing that Spanish incident 
which brought about the Franco-German War. In 1873, 



5 i8 



The Minor States of Europe 



Restoration of 
the Bourbons 
under Alfonso 
XII. (1875). 



The constitu- 
tion 



Economic and 
social condi- 
tions. 



The Spanish 
colonies. 



under the high-minded and capable Castelar, even the 
republican form of government received a trial. 

At length the country made up its mind that for better or 
worse its destiny was coupled with that of the inherited 
Bourbon dynasty and called back Isabella's son, the young 
Alfonso (1875). In 1876 a constitution was published 
which vested the legislative power together with ministerial 
control in a corks of two houses— a senate, partly elected and 
partly appointed by the king, and a congress, elected by the 
people. Since 1890 manhood suffrage has been introduced. 
Old wounds open from time to time, but apparently Spain 
has entered upon an era of definite constitutional progress. 
When Alfonso XII. died in 1885, the grief was general and 
the nation rallied enthusiastically around his posthumous 
son, Alfonso XIII., for whom his mother assumed the 
regency till he was declared of age in 1902. 

The economic and social conditions continue to present 
a serious problem. The country possesses great natural 
resources (good soil and climate in the south, mineral wealth 
in the north), but the population, superstitious, backward 
in civilization, and prone to idleness, does not make the most 
of them. The poverty is great, beggary a national calamity. 
But a slow improvement is noticeable, which will be ac- 
celerated when the public schools are made effective and 
illiteracy, which is general, has been stamped out. Until 
lately a great drain upon the national finances was the 
remnant of the once vast colonial empire, Cuba and the 
Philippines. Perennial misgovernment had made these 
dependencies prone to revolt, and neither military recon- 
quest nor belated attempts at reform secured the attachment 
of the alienated natives. In 1894 Cuba rose again, and 
when a Spanish force of 200,000 men had almost reduced 
the island to a desert, the United States interfered, provok- 
ing the Spanish-American War of 1898. The lusty republic 



The Minor States of Europe 519 

was quickly successful, and in the Peace of Paris Spain 
declared Cuba independent and ceded Porto Rico and the 
Philippines to the victor. The assertion may be ventured 
that the war freed Spain from an embarrassment, for a 
weak power, just recovering from a mortal lethargy, cannot 
hope to communicate the spark of life to distant colonies. 
Spain can now retrench her expenditures and stop the 
growth of her national debt with its crushing interest 
charges. She can concentrate her attention upon her do- 
mestic problems, and may be expected to make rapid prog- 
ress in popular education, scientific culture, and industrial 
methods. 

B. Portugal. 

References: Fyffe, Modern Europe, Chapters XIV., 
XVII.; Seignobos, Europe Since 18 14, Chapter X., 
pp. 319-26; Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 90-91, 
130-33; Stephens, H. Morse, Portugal. 

Portugal, the sister nation to the west of Spain, has in King John 
the nineteenth century passed through the familiar crisis BraziL r ° a 
caused by the conflict of reactionary and progressive prin- 
ciples. When Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807, King 
John and the royal family of Braganza embarked for their 
great dependency, Brazil, where the sovereign chose to re- 
main even after Napoleon's rule had been overthrown. In 
1820 the Portuguese, disaffected by this unexpected prefer- 
ence, rose in revolt and demanded a constitution. In order 
to save his crown, John VI. came back and with a meas- 
ure of common sense unusual in a legitimate king submitted 
to a limitation of his absolutism. 

On John's leaving Brazil, however, the Brazilians, of- Portugal and 
fended in their turn, declared themselves independent of company. 
Portugal and offered the crown to John's son, Pedro. Pe- 
dro wisely accepted, adopting the title Emperor Pedro I., 



520 



The Minor States of Europe 



Civil war. 



The constitu- 
tion. 



The colonies of 
Portugal. 



Difficulties 
and problems. 



but on his father's death, in 1826, had to renounce the older 
crown of Portugal in favor of his infant daughter Maria. 
Thus Portugal and Brazil went each its own way. The 
succession in Portugal of Maria was presently disputed by 
Pedro's uncle Miguel, with the result that Portugal, like 
Spain, was plunged into civil war. At length the supporters 
of Maria, who stood for constitutionalism, were victorious 
over Miguel and his reactionary henchmen, and Portugal 
about the middle of the century was pacified and definitely 
enrolled among the limited monarchies of Europe. The 
constitution provides for a cortes of two houses — the peers, 
who are in part appointed by the king, in part elected, and 
a lower chamber, elected by the people. The franchise 
has been gradually extended (the most recent bill is of 1901) 
until it is practically exercised by all adult males. 

Brazil, which with the accession of Emperor Pedro I. be- 
came an independent state, need not be examined here, ex- 
cept to point out the fortune of the House of Braganza. 
Pedro I. was followed by his son, Pedro II., a prince of a 
modern type, who, when he discovered, after a beneficent 
reign, that the people preferred a republic, resigned his 
throne without a struggle (1890). Even after the loss of 
Brazil, Portugal retained considerable territory in Africa 
(see map, facing p. 540), but national poverty coupled with 
bad management makes the possession a burden on the 
treasury. The Azores and Madeira, nearer home, are a 
more lucrative investment, but are not properly colonies, as 
they are peopled with Portuguese and are fully incorporated 
with the kingdom. 

Economically and intellectually Portugal reproduces the 
problems and sorrows of Spain. The country has resources, 
but the poor and indolent population cannot exploit them. 
Illiteracy is rampant; fully one-half the people cannot read 
and write. The finances, going from bad to worse, led in 



The Minor States of Europe 521 

1893 to a partial suspension of interest payment on the 
national debt. That meant bankruptcy. Doubtless it would 
be a blessing if Portugal could be persuaded to pocket her 
pride, disband her army, and sell her African colonies to 
the highest bidder. Perhaps, too, it would be the part of 
wisdom if the two sister nations, Spain and Portugal, could 
be persuaded to form a federation, but the patriotism of the 
Portuguese puts any such plan out of the question for a 
long time to come. However, when all is said, civilization 
has moved forward and not backward in this state, in 
whose skies still lingers faintly the glory of the age when 
Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope and Vasco da Gama 
returned with the spices of India. 

C. Switzerland. 

References: Seignobos, Europe Since 18 14, Chapter IX., 
pp. 257-86; Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 10, 262- 
65; McCracken, Rise of the Swiss Republic, Book 
V. (nineteenth century). 

We have seen (p. 86) how the Swiss Confederation Difficulties of 
began in the revolt of the three Forest cantons, Schwyz, federation. ° n ~ 
Uri, and Unterwalden, against the counts of Hapsburg; how 
other cantons joined the league until the number reached 
thirteen; and how the sovereignty of the republic, after 
having been virtually exercised for two and a half centuries, 
was acknowledged by the Holy Roman Empire in the 
Peace of Westphalia (1648). Though independence was 
gained, the new state was afflicted with many troubles: 
1. The union established no effective federal control 
and practically left the individual cantons sovereign. 2. 
While some cantons were governed democratically, others 
were swayed entirely by a narrow oligarchy. 3. Certain 
regions were classified as subject or allied territories and 



52; 



The Minor States of Europe 



Changes 
wrought by 
the French 
Revolution. 



The federal 
victory. 



did not enjoy equality with the thirteen cantons. 4. The 
Reformation had carried into the country a fierce re* 
ligious strife, which the settlement of Kappel (153 1) aU 
leviated but did not end. 

Nevertheless, imperfect as the Swiss union was, it endured 
till the French Revolution, when it went to pieces under the 
assault of the new ideas aided by a French army of in- 
vasion. In 1803 Napoleon interposed as mediator among 
the warring cantons and imposed a constitution along lib- 
eral lines with real federal control, but this, like all the rest 
of his creations, was swept away by the iron besom of the 
allies and left the question of Switzerland to be decided by 
the Congress of Vienna. The statesmen of the Congress 
with their unreasoning conservatism favored the loose union 
of prerevolutionary days. This was therefore reestablished, 
not without certain modifications but with an avowed re- 
turn to the traditional state sovereignty. In other respects 
the Congress was not ungenerous. Switzerland was put 
under the guarantee of the powers, and new cantons were 
added, bringing the number, as at present, up to twenty- 
two. 

The Federal Pact of 18 15 had hardly been adopted when 
the old troubles flared up again, federalists arraying them- 
selves against advocates of state rights, Protestants against 
Catholics. The crisis came toward the middle of the cen- 
tury. To defend themselves against the encroachments of 
the radicals and reformers, seven Catholic cantons formed a 
conservative league called Sonderbund. This act, tanta- 
mount to secession, was challenged by the Federal Diet, 
and in a short war the Sonderbund was defeated and scat- 
tered (1847). Thereupon the radical victors crowned their 
work by giving Switzerland a new constitution, which was 
both federal and democratic, and which with slight altera- 
tions is in operation to-day. 



The Minor States of Europe 523 

By the constitution of 1848 the supremacy of the federal The constitu- 
over the cantonal powers was raised beyond a doubt, but 
the governments of the cantons were not deprived of their 
local rights. Switzerland in its dovetailing of federal and 
local powers offers a strong resemblance to the political 
system of the United States. The national legislation was 
vested in a Federal Assembly of two houses: the Council of 
States, much like the United States Senate, consists of two 
delegates from each canton, while the National Council, 
comparable to the House of Representatives, is elected by 
the people on the basis of universal manhood suffrage. The 
national executive is not a single person, but a committee 
of seven, called the Federal Council and elected by the 
Federal Assembly. Although one of the seven presides un- 
der the title of President of the Council, his authority is 
hardly greater than that of his colleagues. A very inter- 
esting feature developed by the Swiss democracy is the di- 
rect share in law-making secured to the people by means 
of two devices, the referendum and the popular initiative. 
By the referendum, laws passed by the legislature are referred Referendum 
for a final verdict to a popular vote. We may notice, by the initiative. ** 
way, that this is a growing practice in the state and city 
governments of the United States. The popular initiative 
concedes the right to a certain number of voters to frame a 
bill which must be submitted to the people for adoption or 
rejection. These measures, in successful operation for 
some time in both the state and national governments, make 
Switzerland the most advanced democracy of our age. 

Political discussion and responsibility have had the effect Prosperity 
of so stirring the energies of the people that Switzerland harmony 
enjoys a remarkable prosperity. An excellent public-school 
system has stamped out illiteracy. Switzerland, too, al- 
though it enfolds several nationalities, is not vexed by any 
race problem. Of the twenty-two cantons, thirteen are 



524 



The Minor States of Europe 



German, four are French, three are mixed German and 
French, and one is Italian. In the canton of Graubiinden 
German disputes possession with Romansch, a dying tongue 
derived from Latin. The preponderant element is Ger- 
man (over two-thirds of the whole population), but Ger- 
man, French, and Italian are all official languages. 



The United 
Netherlands 
from 1815 to 
1830. 



The constitu- 
tion. 



D. Holland. 

References: Seignobos, Europe Since 18 14, Chapter 
VIII., pp. 229-44; Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 8, 
187, 192. 

The Congress of Vienna, moved by the desire to create 
a strong barrier against France, tried the experiment of 
uniting the ancient Netherlands under a Dutch king of the 
House of Orange. We have seen (Chapter XVIII) that 
the project failed, not only because of differences in race, 
language, and religion, but also quite as much because the 
southern provinces were treated unfairly in such matters as 
office-holding and parliamentary representation. Against 
such discrimination the southern provinces protested in 
their revolt of 1830 and organized themselves as a separate 
state under the name of Belgium. The Dutch king, William 
I., offered what resistance he could, but had at last to give 
way. 

We should note that William's diminished kingdom, col- 
loquially called Holland, bears officially the name of the 
Netherlands. The constitution granted by the sovereign 
in 18 14 was replaced in 1848 by a more liberal one still in 
vigor. The king has at his side a law-making body, called 
the States- General, composed of two houses. The upper 
house represents the provinces and is chosen by the pro- 
vincial legislatures, while the lower house is elected by the 
people, practically (since 1896) on the basis of manhood 



The Minor States of Europe 525 

suffrage. The kingdom is a federal state and the compo- 
nent provinces retain a large measure of self-government. 

The solid qualities of the Dutch have brought peace and The outlook, 
prosperity to the state. The large colonial possessions in 
Asiatic waters, a remnant of the more considerable territories 
acquired in the heroic days of the republic, present many 
difficulties, but are still managed at a profit. Is the state 
ever likely to be incorporated with Germany, with which it 
is closely allied in speech and blood? The patriotism and 
traditions of the Dutch are emphatically enlisted against 
such a fusion, and the mere suggestion arouses resentment. 
The question, occasionally discussed by people of a specu- 
lative turn, is not likely to become a burning one for a long 
time. The present sovereign is Queen Wilhelmina, who 
succeeded in 1890 at the age of ten, and is the last scion of 
the famous Orange stock. 

E. Belgium. 

References: Seignobos, Europe Since 1814, Chapter 
VIII., pp. 244-57; Phillips, Modern Europe, pp. 
188-99, 454, 467. 

Following their successful revolt of 1830 the Belgian peo- The constitu- 
ple organized themselves under a liberal monarchical con- 
stitution and called to the throne Leopold of the German 
House of Saxe-Coburg. His family still reigns in Belgium, 
Leopold I. (1831-65) after a prosperous rule being succeeded 
by his son, Leopold II., who ruled from 1865 to 1909. The 
institution of 1831, with a few amendments, is still in 
effect. It created a Parliament of two houses, an upper 
house, largely chosen by local bodies, and a lower house, 
elected by the people. Originally the electors were a small 
body by reason of a high property qualification, but since 
1893 manhood suffrage prevails with the curious feature of 



tion. 



526 The Minor States of Europe 

plural votes for men possessed of a more than average 
measure of wealth and education. 

Clericals and This recent grant of a liberal franchise was due to the 

socialists. . 

remarkable industrial prosperity of Belgium in the nine- 
teenth century. The little state has taken a place among 
the great manufacturing countries of the world, and has 
developed a dense population of over 6,000,000 people, 
largely laborers crowded together in grimy cities. This 
proletariat by threatening demonstrations forced the gov- 
ernment to extend the suffrage as just noted. The first 
enlarged election (1894) astonished the agitators, inasmuch 
as the country returned a large clerical majority. The 
clerical party, intensely Catholic, immediately carried its 
favorite measure and put the schools under the control of 
the Church. Meanwhile the socialists have been growing 
rapidly, making it plain that the battle for the possession 
of power will be waged henceforth between the two extreme 
parties. In the new alignment of issues the old-fashioned 
liberals, in Belgium as everywhere else, have been' crushed 
between the upper and the nether millstone. 

The Congo In the scramble for Africa Leopold secured the recog- 

Free State . 

nition by the European nations of his sovereignty of the 

Congo Free State (1884). The sovereignty is personal, but 
Leopold was obliged to administer his vast realm by Belgian 
subjects and to develop it with Belgian capital, and has 
promised in return for this support to leave it to the state 
on his demise. The Congo Free State is therefore already 
essentially a Belgian colony. A cruel exploitation of the 
natives on the part of the companies formed to trade in 
ivory and rubber has lately come to light, and furnishes an 
extreme example of the evils attending the rule of savages 
by so-called superior races, but the indignation of the civ- 
ilized world directed at the Belgian companies also shows 
where the corrective of these abuses lies. 



The Minor States of Europe 527 



F. Denmark. 

References: Seignobos, Europe Since 18 14, Chapter 
XVIII., pp. 554-56, 566-78; Phillips, Modern Europe, 
PP- 3 J 4-i5> 3 2 6, 394, 409-12, 418-19. 

The political power of the feudal orders lasted very long Denmark 
in Denmark, and not till 1660, in the reign of Frederick III., duchies of 
was it replaced by the absolute monarchy. This system $9 ¥ e £^ lg and 
continued well into the nineteenth century, but in 1848 the 
liberal agitation was successful and induced the king to 
grant a modern constitution. At the same time the interest 
of the nation became absorbed in the question of the duchies 
of Schleswig and Holstein, which, inhabited for the most 
part by Germans and bound to Denmark only by a per- 
sonal union, were aiming at independence. We have fol- 
lowed the struggle (pp. 447-48, 456, 470-71) to the inter- 
ference in 1864 of Austria and Prussia, who compelled the 
surrender of the two provinces to themselves. Later, in 
1866, Bismarck obliged Austria to forego her claim. 

Since the defeat of 1864 Denmark has devoted herself to Domestic 
domestic affairs. A promising beginning was made in 1866 
by a new constitution, which created a parliament of two 
houses. The upper house is largely appointed by the king, 
while the lower house is elected by manhood suffrage. In- 
creasing prosperity tends to strengthen the democracy, but 
the king remains an important factor in the government. 
Christian IX., who succeeded to the throne in 1863, reigned 
until his death in 1906. Owing to the brilliant marriages 
of two of his daughters to the heirs respectively of the 
thrones of Great Britain and Russia, he was known humor- 
ously as the father-in-law of Europe. From 1877 to 1891 
he maintained a contest with the lower house over the ques- 
tion as to who controlled the ministry, himself or the repre- 
sentatives, and to all appearances he came out victorious. 



affairs. 



$g8 



The Minor States of Europe 



The arctic island Iceland is a Danish dependency, but, 
already possessed of extensive rights of self-government, 
inclines to insist more and more on complete home rule. 



G. Sweden and Norway. 

References: Seignobos, Europe Since 1814, Chapter 
XVIII., 554-66; R. N. Bain, Scandinavia, Chapter 
XVII. 



The union of 
Sweden and 
Norway. 



Quarrels and 
separation. 



In return for aid granted to the allies in 18 13 against 
Napoleon, Marshal Bernadotte, crown prince of Sweden, 
stipulated that Norway be added to his territories. Nor- 
way had been for four hundred years a dependency of Den- 
mark, and the Norwegian people hoped that in the general 
reconstruction of Europe the Danish regime would be re- 
placed by independence. The prospect of a new subjec- 
tion, this time to Sweden, alarmed them, and, rising (1814) 
in rebellion, they refused to be satisfied until the king of 
Sweden promised to rule Norway, not as a Swedish prov- 
ince, but as an independent kingdom with its own separate 
constitution. Thus was created the kingdom of Sweden 
and Norway, a union of two equal states having little in 
common beyond the same sovereign. 

Even so the Norwegians were not content. They strug- 
gled incessantly to insure themselves the fullest possible 
control of their own affairs, and from 1872 the relations 
of the two Scandinavian neighbors became critical. First 
the Norwegian parliament, called Storthing, demanded that 
it, and not the king, should control the ministry, and no 
sooner was this battle won, when it demanded a separate 
Norwegian consular service. As this would have created 
two separate departments of foreign affairs, the king re- 
sisted, and a long struggle ensued, which the Storthing at 



The Minor States of Europe 529 

last ended in 1905 by declaring the king of Sweden deposed 
and Norway independent. For a moment war between 
Sweden and Norway seemed imminent, but Oscar II. gave 
another proof of the sagacity which has won him golden 
opinions, by bowing to the inevitable. In the fall of 1905 
the Storthing with the approval of the people offered the 
crown to the Danish prince Charles, who, in accepting the 
election, declared that he would reign under the name, 
famous in Norwegian story, of Haakon. Norway and 
Sweden are now in all respects independent of each other, 
and with every cause of conflict removed may start afresh 
upon an era of unclouded relations. 

A circumstance which doubtless contributed to the fric- Aristocratic 
tion between the ill-sorted pair was that Sweden is an democratic 
aristocratic, Norway a democratic country. This appears Norwa y- 
from an examination of their constitutions. Not until the 
middle of the century did Sweden give up its mediaeval diet, 
composed of four estates, for a modern parliament of two 
houses (1866). The upper house is chosen by local councils 
and only wealthy men are eligible, while the lower house is 
elected by the people. The franchise for the lower house 
is based on an income qualification high enough to exclude 
one-third of the adult males from voting. These arrange- 
ments are due to the traditional influence exercised in 
Sweden by the clergy and nobility. In Norway, although 
the clergy is powerful, the nobility counts for nothing, for 
the Storthing abolished the use of nobiliary titles half a 
century ago. Since 1884 every man has a vote, with the 
result that the Storthing is as democratic as the society which 
it represents. 



CHAPTER XXVII 



Democracy 
and national- 
ism the driv- 
ing agents of 
European 
politics during 
the nineteenth 
century. 



CHARACTER OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION AT THE 
BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 

References: C. J. H. Hayes, A Political and Social 
History of Modern Europe, Vol. II., Chapters 
XVIII., XXI., XXVII.; Schapiro, Modern and 
Contemporary European History, Chapters III., 
XXIV., XXVI., XXVIII.; E. P. Cheney, An 
Introduction to the Industrial and Social History 
of England; A. R. Wallace, The Wonderful Cen- 
tury; E. W. Bryn, The Progress of Invention in 
the Nineteenth Century; J. A. Hobson, The Evo- 
lution of Modern Capitalism; J. Spargo, Socialism; 
P. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Awakening of the East. 

Looking back over the development of Europe in the 
nineteenth century, we mark substantially the same po- 
litical movement among all its peoples, though exhibiting 
a variable volume and intensity. Its characteristic ele- 
ments, the forces most in view, have been democracy and 
nationalism, the former operating to increase the power 
and influence of the people, the latter aiming to effect a 
reorganization of the existing governments along strictly 
national lines. The results by the year of grace 1900 
are striking, for while one of the agents, democracy, has 
succeeded in generally replacing an irresponsible absolut- 
ism with the constitutional system and has made decided 
progress toward its goal of universal suffrage, the other 
agent, nationalism, has performed no less astonishing 

530 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 531 

feats, as, for example, the unification of the divided Italian 
and German peoples, the erection on the ruins of the 
Ottoman empire of the small Balkan states, and the issu- 
ance of a challenge to the composite state of Austria- 
Hungary and to the still vaster mass of Russia in the form 
of a vigorous nationalist ferment among their component 
peoples. 

Doubtless, the thoughtful student has long been moved Democracy 
to ask: Why democracy, why nationalism? Why is it f S m manifesta- 
that these vital forces put in an appearance exactly when li P^. of modern 

*r rr j civilization. 

they did, and why did they acquire so irresistible an im- 
petus? Before attempting to answer these questions it is 
necessary to refer once more to the purpose and char- 
acter of this book. Concerned primarily, if not exclu- 
sively, with political phenomena, it does not seek to 
penetrate below the surface to the deeper springs of human 
action. While this limitation of program may be amply 
justified in a work offering no more than a First View, 
it is undeniable that at a certain point — a point which 
we may now consider ourselves to have reached — it be- 
comes advisable to lift the veil in order to have a look 
behind appearances to their compelling causes. For causes, 
subtle and deep-lying, such dynamic movements as democ- 
racy and nationalism must imperatively have, and very 
little reflection will show that they are inextricably tied 
up with that complex and enveloping phenomenon indi- 
cated by the convenient collective term of civilization. 
For the sake of the fuller understanding which we crave 
we must now essay to trace some of the characteristic 
features of the civilization of our time. 

Nineteenth-century civilization is so many-sided and Science the 
complicated that it is an impossible feat of mental leger- emciviiization. 
demain to describe it in a nutshell. Let us agree that 
its kernel, its central principle, is science, and let us loosely 



532 Character of European Civilization 



define science (from Latin scire = to know) as the whole 
body of knowledge which, in the course of the ages, man 
has succeeded in accumulating concerning himself and the 
world in which he lives. Though man began the collec- 
tion of knowledge in remote antiquity and has successfully 
added to his store ever since, it is undeniable that his 
hunger for information received a particularly powerful 
stimulus about the time of the voyages of discovery and 
the revival of learning, and that the Modern Age, which 
these movements ushered in, came in a very conspicuous 
way to be dedicated to the increase of knowledge. That 
increase, however, though always considered desirable, was 
for hundreds and thousands of years a matter of guess-work 
and happy accident because of the absence of a method 
which would serve to separate truth from error and to 
permit the sure and systematic conquest of the universe. 
By such a method, if it were discoverable, certainty would 
gradually replace conjecture and our knowledge acquire 
that character of exactness which is precisely the feature 
distinguishing it in our time and supplying the solid basis 
of our present civilization. 

This needed instrument of research, chiefly responsible 
for the recent enormous multiplication of our knowledge, 
is known as the inductive method. Used in an imperfect 
form as early as the Reformation, it has since been steadily 
improved and gained an increasing authority. Its essence 
is observation, involving the most minute and loving scru- 
tiny of the material furnished by the senses. But obser- 
vation alone would not have carried us far. It was grad- 
ually supplemented by experimentation, which by ingen- 
ious artifices, and latterly with the aid of highly equipped 
laboratories, has enabled the investigator to isolate his 
phenomena and to control the conditions under which 
they act. Finally, special apparatus, such as the tele- 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 533 

scope and microscope, has come to the aid of observation 
by disclosing data forever hidden from the feeble senses 
with which nature has endowed us. 

A satisfactory account of the leaders of thought who The vast in- 
by their use, during the last three centuries, of the indue- edge since the 
tive method have filled to overflowing the cup of human Reform ation. 
knowledge would call for an encyclopedia. In fact, it 
was to tell of the achievements of these men that encyclo- 
pedias were first invented. Merely to convey an idea of 
the vastness of the subject, let us consider for a moment a 
few outstanding sixteenth and seventeenth century names, 
such as Copernicus (d. 1543), Kepler (d. 1630), Galileo 
(d. 1642), and Newton (d. 1727). They make up a galaxy 
of early investigators who, concerned with physics and 
astronomy, interests inherited from antiquity, gave us a 
new understanding of the solar system and ended by dis- 
closing the mechanical nature of the universe, together 
with the laws of gravitation holding its parts in perpetual 
equilibrium. After Newton's day, that is, with the com- 
ing of the eighteenth century, investigation was acceler- 
ated, and by the time the nineteenth century was reached 
faith in the efficacy of the new method, the method of 
induction, had become so general a possession that stead- 
ily growing numbers of enthusiasts devoted their lives 
to the study of the phenomenal world. An inevitable 
consequence of the collection of an overwhelming mass 
of data was that science had to be divided into smaller 
and ever smaller domains, each in charge of a group of 
specialists, and that knowledge became so vast a body of 
fact that no single individual could any longer hope to 
master it. One has but to glance at the catalogue of a 
modern university and note the many sub-heads into 
which the activities of chemists or physicists or botanists, 
or any other group of investigators, have fallen to get a 



534 Character of European Civilization 

vivid impression of the refinement and specialization of 
present-day science. 
The purpose of But all this exacting labor — was it engaged in for its 
serve mankind, own sake? All this fresh knowledge — was it collected as 
an end in itself just to fill the garners of the mind? The 
champions of the movement would have been the first 
to answer that their labors were undertaken in the ulti- 
mate hope of benefiting humanity. They would have de- 
clared with a single voice that they expected inventions 
and labor-saving devices to be derived from the cumula- 
tive captures of knowledge which would lighten man's 
burden in the struggle for existence and would, while 
elevating the human race to a higher level of intelligence, 
prepare for it a destiny as rich and happy as any ever 
glimpsed by seer or poet. Whether this goal has been 
or is likely to be achieved is a question which, though 
very important in itself, does not concern us here. All 
that concerns us is the more or less conscious utilitarian 
purpose which has been behind the scientific movement 
from the start. 
Science gave us We are all aware that increase of knowledge has from 
and The ma-' the earliest time led to mechanical inventions and that 
dus^nal revoiu- i nvent i° ns nave played a leading r61e in the progress of 
tion. mankind. When our remote ancestors made a stone 

hatchet and followed it up with the bow and arrow, they 
registered a tremendous advance over the other animals. 
The boat, the wagon, the loom, all reaching back to gray 
antiquity, suffice to indicate that man's mind always 
had an ingenious turn. But not till knowledge was sys- 
tematized and made exact, that is, not until recent times, 
were inventions possible on a scale large enough to alter 
radically the traditional basis of the human struggle. For 
only the modern movement, identified with the inductive 
method, had disclosed the immense wild forces of nature 



engine. 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 535 

which the modern inventor would make it his business 
to domesticate and put at the service of the race. Wres- 
tling with this problem, he presently created the machine, 
and the startling and almost incalculable multiplication 
in recent generations of machines of every kind and de- 
scription has stamped upon our age its peculiar character. 
The nineteenth century became a machine age, which 
means that the hoary and venerable system of production 
by hand was abandoned and that an economic movement 
was inaugurated which, in view of its sweeping conse- 
quences, has been aptly called the industrial revolution. 

The industrial revolution, although well named, was very The industrial 
unlike the usual political revolution in that it was inaug- augurated with 
urated neither to the wild ringing of bells nor to the new textile 

, , ,,._ _. . , .... machinery and 

loud rattle of firearms. It began almost unnoticed with the steam- 
halting experiments by resolute individuals capable of 
sacrificing themselves for an idea. Appearing first in 
England, in the second half of the eighteenth century, 
the movement in its earliest phase concentrated its atten- 
tion upon improvements in the processes of spinning and 
weaving cloth. Presently an engineer, James Watt by 
name, made an invention of another sort, for he devised 
around 1770 the steam-engine. Set to drive the new 
textile machinery of looms and spinning jennies, a single 
steam-engine could deliver more power than scores of men 
and even horses. The new force, steam, opened an al- 
most boundless prospect. By the early decades of the 
nineteenth century its use was rapidly spreading over 
western Europe, and with it went the installation of iron- 
made, expensive, factory-housed machinery. Admirable 
for driving stationary machines, what was to hinder hitch- 
ing the steam-engine to vehicles and boats? The thought 
came to many, but it was not till 1807 that Robert Fulton, 
an American, launched the first practicable steamboat, 



536 Character of European Civilization 



Social 

consequences 
of the 
industrial 
revolution. 



and not till 1825 that George Stephenson, an Englishman, 
constructed a locomotive capable of drawing a train of 
cars. Steamboat and locomotive, improved with each 
new year in one particular or another, completely revolu- 
tionized travel and transportation. Set to perform ever 
new tasks, the steam-engine became the sleepless titan 
who labored day and night in the interests of his puny 
master, man. 

Sharp on the heel of these changes in manufacture and 
transportation followed a reorganization of society. 
Steam-driven machinery brought with it an amazing in- 
crease in the production of goods, while railroads and 
steamboats secured their rapid and relatively inexpensive 
transfer to near and far-off points. Distances were cut 
down to such an extent that not only were the different 
countries of Europe but also the scattered continents of 
the earth so closely brought together that, for commer- 
cial purposes, they became related parts of a single whole. 
Within each European country, as soon as it experienced 
these economic changes, important social changes fol- 
lowed. The people of the countryside tended to gravi- 
tate to the towns, where the machines were, and while 
the towns, generally speaking, grew by leaps and bounds, 
those towns favorably located in respect of much traveled 
routes of commerce, or close to deposits of coal and iron, 
basic raw products of the new age, waxed to great metrop- 
olises fed by a steady stream of immigration. The im- 
migrants, piled pell-mell around the dingy, smoke-belching 
factories, found shelter as best they could in wretched 
tenements. Squalid blocks of these human warrens con- 
stituted a special workingmen's quarter or slum over which 
discomfort, dirt, disease, and crime stretched a pall of un- 
interrupted gloom. While the whole community suffered 
in its health and morals from these plague-spots, the pale 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 537 

laborers and their pinched and emaciated wives and chil- 
dren showed unmistakably who were the chief victims. 
During at least the early phases of the industrial move- 
ment the factory-hands and tenement-dwellers looked very 
much like a new class of economic slaves. 

The gradual emancipation of the workers, their uplift improvement 
to a higher plane of freedom and dignity, is one of the ^factory ° f 
most important stories of the nineteenth centur}', but workers, 
cannot be told here. Suffice it that improvements in 
their lot were effected bit by bit in various ways, by 
philanthropy, by humane societies formed to mitigate 
special evils, such as tuberculosis and overcrowding, but 
chiefly by means of organizations among the workingmen 
themselves, called trade or labor unions, which by col- 
lective bargaining and, in the last resort, by strikes forced 
the employers to reduce hours, increase wages, and im- 
prove the conditions of living. 

With this program of a gradual improvement of the increasing 
economic status of the workingmen the trade unions, con- ^o^ngmen 
trolled by practical men, themselves laborers, were for a P ut their faith 
long time content. However, toward the middle of the changes and 
nineteenth century certain leaders of thought, usually not socialism, 
workingmen, made their appearance in labor circles to 
preach the complete overthrow of the existing economic 
system and the taking over of the means of production 
and transportation — factories, mines, railroads — by the 
workers themselves. These intellectual radicals, though 
differing considerably from one another in the details of 
their proposals, agreed in the one all-important demand of 
changing the current system of production from the 
ground up. Looking forward to a socialized and co- 
operative, instead of an individualist and competitive sys- 
tem, they may be conveniently classified as socialists. In 
the second half of the nineteenth century one such theorist, 



538 Character of European Civilization 

a German, Karl Marx by name, acquired such an as- 
cendancy in the realms of radical economic thought that 
almost the whole revolutionary working-class movement 
was finally gathered under his banner. Marx's book 
called Capital (1867), which criticizes the existing, and 
sketches an ideal system, became in effect the Holy Book 
or Bible of the new socialist doctrine. Organized both 
nationally and internationally, Marxian socialism boasted 
with each new decade increasing numbers of adherents in 
every country of Europe. 
The industrial While giving due weight to the condition and struggles 
the business or of those who, as workingmen, constitute the innumerable 
middle class. servants of the new industrial tools, we must not let our- 
selves be diverted from perceiving that something, if not 
more important, at least more conspicuous, was simultane- 
ously being brought about in another social group. It is 
evident that the immediate manipulators of the industrial 
revolution who, as bankers supplying the money and as 
factory and transportation chiefs supplying the brains, 
captained the movement, were tightly held together in 
the net of a common interest. Not only did they direct 
the vastly increased production and exchange, but they 
also absorbed the waxing profits and became wealthy. 
Referred to in the United States as business men, in 
Europe they came to be generally designated as the 
middle class or bourgeoisie. Let us make no mistake 
about it: the nineteenth century world is largely of 
their making. Even at the beginning of the era, back in 
the days of the Holy Alliance, they felt, by a sort of 
passionate instinct, that if only they were given a free 
field and no favors, they would in very short order in- 
dustrialize the world to the world's advantage, in- 
cidentally making themselves the unquestioned masters 
of the situation. 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 539 

Unfortunately, however, the old organization of society, The middle 
inherited from the Middle Age, stood in the way of the at economic rS 
new and rising order. The old organization favored the p^-cai 1 at 
clergy and nobility, while heavily taxing commerce and preponderance, 
industry and burdening them with a whole network of 
regulations in the real or supposed interest of the state. 
Wanting supremely to use the new business opportunities 
without let or hindrance, the middle class developed a 
theory or philosophy of economic freedom which has been 
called by various names, such as laisser-faire (to let alone) 
and individualism. Economic freedom, it was calcu- 
lated, would, if only applied broadly enough, lift the new 
class of bankers, managers, and business people into the 
saddle. First, it would serve as a rallying-cry against 
the older privileged classes, the clergy and nobility, and, 
by depriving them of their traditional advantages, reduce 
them to the level of the middle class; then it would break 
down the antiquated governmental regulations, stupidly 
tying the hands of enterprise; and finally, it would so 
greatly increase the wealth and therewith the economic 
preponderance of the bourgeoisie that the machinery of 
the state would slowly but inevitably pass into the hands 
of those who were everywhere bearing the burden of society 
and doing its constructive work. 

By these and related steps the industrial revolution The middle 
passed into the realm of politics. At this point the main ^j^ j-temifsm 
stages of the movement we have been tracing are worth and the liberal 
recapitulating. Science gave birth to the machine; the 
machine produced, in addition to the working class, nu- 
merous but relatively powerless, the middle class, owner 
and manager of the machine; the middle class, desirous to 
free itself from the influence of the older classes and from 
the control of the more or less autocratic state, adopted the 
platform of economic freedom called laisser-faire or indi- 



54-0 Character of European Civilization 



The 

programme 
of the liberal 
party. 



vidualism; and finally, in order to translate its programme 
into action, the middle class formed a political party re- 
solved to capture power and office. It was under the name 
of liberal party or some designation conveying the same 
idea that the bourgeoisie of every country of Europe or- 
ganized and entered the arena of public life. The name 
served to proclaim that the middle class, face to face with 
an antiquated state and with hostile conservative classes, 
instinctively averse to change, planned to pursue a policy of 
liberalism, that is, a policy of movement and reorganization. 
Examine nineteenth century liberalism and it will be 
found that its political tool, the liberal party, is every- 
where the party of the middle class, existing expressly for 
the purpose of capturing the legislature and the govern- 
ment to the end of establishing its mastery of society and 
of realizing its programme. And what is that programme? 
Everywhere essentially this: abolition of the privileges of 
the older classes, equality of all men before the law, 
political enfranchisement, freedom of economic enterprise 
from state control, liberty of religion, press, and public as- 
sembly. What we have encountered in our story of Eu- 
rope as democracy is therefore the offspring of liberalism 
and recites the victorious and uninterrupted advance of 
the middle class. And nationalism, no less than democ- 
racy, is a liberalist product. For nationalism demands the 
free union of all people of the same speech and customs, 
and since such a union tends to end the exploitation con- 
ducted by a foreign ruling power or by an inherited govern- 
ing group, it is favored by the middle class, aware that the 
overthrow of the traditional regime must automatically 
bring the leaders of commerce and industry to the fore. 
Democracy and nationalism, around which the whole 
ism spring from political story of nineteenth century Europe was found by 
civilization. us to turn, are thus clearly tied up with all that is most 



Democracy 
and national- 




l_ IBrtttslil 1 French I \8pmia1 |NOTE TO THE STUDENT: 

i r I 1 I r The most valuable parts of Africa are in possession of Eng- 

I \Germnn\ \Italian I [Portugttese] l an d(Cape Colony, Transvaal, Egypt)andFrance(Algeria, 

I 1 I 1 Tunis). The rest of the continent is subject to com- 

1 \ Turkish I \ Congo State mercial exploitation by Europeans, but can never be 

settled by them, at least not in large numbers. 

THE MATTHEWS-NORTHRUP WORKS, BUFFALO, N.Y. ] I [ [ I 



20 ' West from 10 ' Greenwich 0" 



1CT Longitude 20 East from 30° Greenwich 40° 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 541 

characteristic of the nineteenth century — with the rise of 
the business classes, with the industrial revolution, with 
machines, with science, in a word, with civilization. It 
would hardly be going too far to set up an historical 
syllogism on something of this order: given science with 
its corollary, mechanical invention, as a premise, democ- 
racy and nationalism must follow as a simple matter of 
social logic. 

Though we started with the limited purpose of relating Uninterrupted 
nineteenth century politics to nineteenth century civili- movement of 
zation, we may hope to penetrate to a still better under- ? cienc< : and 

' j xr r invention. 

standing of our age by spinning somewhat further the 
thread of nineteenth century progress. The steam- 
engine, driving powerful, iron-built machinery, proved 
only a beginning among epoch-making inventions. Other 
discoveries and contrivances followed, each decade mag- 
nificently outdoing the one which it succeeded. The 
natural forces captured, the mechanical devices, the im- 
provements in transportation, the endless conveniences 
and luxuries beggar description. A few scattered in- 
dications will serve to recall a picture familiar to all. 
The most valuable force recently brought under the yoke 
by man is doubtless electricity. As a motive power for 
industry and transportation it has, if not displaced steam^ 
at least widely supplemented it, while in addition, it has 
served to light our cities and houses and marvelously 
expedited communication by means of the telegraph, the 
telephone, and the submarine cable. Wireless teleg- 
raphy, developed but yesterday, shows that we are not 
yet at the end of the wonders of this force. If we further 
remind ourselves that with the new century man resolutely 
undertook to gain the mastery of the air and that a be- 
ginning, but so far only a beginning, has been made with 
that amazing new force, the X-ray, it becomes difficult to 



the world. 



542 Character of European Civilization 

refrain from prophesying that in the command of natural 
power the man of the next generation will be as far ahead 
of the nineteenth century as the much glorified nineteenth 
century was ahead of the Middle Age. 
Industrialized We come now to another aspect of the industrial revolu- 

Europe sets . , . . , . , , ___, ., _ 

out to conquer tion: its radiation over the whole earth. While Europe 
has remained its center because the European man has 
created the occidental type of civilization and possesses 
superior educational, social, and other institutions, it has 
none the less gradually made its way to every shore and 
clime. Chief agents of its spread were the enterprising 
business men of England, France, and Germany who, 
after supplying the home markets, naturally sought to 
dispose of their surplus goods by sending them abroad. 
To this end merchants, manufacturers, shipowners, and 
financiers, acting in necessary cooperation, offered the 
factory products of their respective countries for sale, 
accepting in exchange such raw products as wheat, min- 
erals, sugar, cotton, rubber, and other specialties, which 
Europe either did not produce or produced in insufficient 
quantities. Soon Asia and Africa were enmeshed in trade 
relations which may indeed have brought some comforts 
and alleviation to their peoples but which in certain re- 
spects inevitably operated to the disadvantage of the back- 
ward societies of these continents by reducing them to a 
substantial dependence on European enterprise and organi- 
zation. The case of America, more particularly of the 
United States, does not fall under this head because the 
United States, by imitating Europe, very soon developed 
such industrial strength as to enable it to compete with 
Europe on a basis of equality. Asia and Africa, on the 
other hand, appeared in the light of prizes to the European 
nations, which presently engaged in a wild scramble among 
themselves for the control of the more promising areas. 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 543 
Thus was inaugurated a colonial race among the Eu- The colonial 

!_• 1. 1 j • il r r r competition 

ropean powers which led in the course of a few furious and the 
decades to the appropriation of Africa and large sections l^^ll 
of Asia. By the end of the nineteenth century Morocco 
in Africa, and China, Turkey, and Persia in Asia still held 
out against European pressure, but these independent 
remnants of two vast continents were so rapidly growing 
feeble that they were manifestly doomed. Even at the 
close of the eighteenth century and before the industrial 
revolution was well under way, the by far largest colonial 
empire in the world was the British. Since the industrial 
revolution began in Britain and bloomed there as nowhere 
else, the British empire was enabled to absorb vast new 
areas and at the end of the nineteenth century was still 
easily the world's colonial leader. France and Russia, 
however, had not been idle. They registered great suc- 
cessive enlargements, France chiefly in Africa, Russia in 
Asia, and by the year 1900 followed, though at some dis- 
tance, in the British wake. Germany, though entering 
the race late, due to her tardy unification, tried to make up 
for lost time by increased vigor, while Italy, in spite of 
certain handicaps due to lack of industrial resources, was 
firmly resolved not to be left behind. The United States, 
as a result of the Spanish war of 1898, acquired the 
Philippines and the control of Cuba, and from that hour 
necessarily figured in the contest. 

It is clear that when the twentieth century opened Great Colonialism 
Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, and the United imperialism. 
States were the main factors in the colonial race. It is 
also clear that the colonial race was in its earliest phase 
economic, that is, it was a contest among the merchant 
groups of the rival nations for markets, raw products, in- 
vestments, in a word, for wealth. But from the first, 
though often imperceptibly, a political element was intro- 



544 Character of European Civilization 

duced into the struggle. Behind the merchants were their 
respective governments, everywhere more or less identified 
with the merchants, and these governments, disposing of 
political power expressed in terms of diplomacy, navies, 
and armies, carried the issue of markets and subject- 
areas into the political sphere. They bargained with one 
another, they signed treaties, they covertly or openly 
threatened, and thus converted colonialism, a movement 
of economic expansion, into its political counterpart, im- 
perialism. They appealed to nationalist pride to arouse 
the masses and get them behind their imperialist designs, 
and they steadily developed their armies and navies to 
give point to their negotiations and put potential weight 
behind their territorial claims. 
Imperialism By the beginning of the twentieth century colonialism, 

specter of war. overshadowed threateningly by imperialism, had become a 
matter of world concern, and from time to time, as, for 
instance, when one power made an appropriation of terri- 
tory on which some other power had likewise cast an eye, 
a crisis was precipitated which raised the specter of a 
general war. Since countless inventions had enormously 
increased the means of destruction, a general war, if it 
occurred, would be terrible and might involve the ruin of 
civilization. Was this then to be the outcome of the 
movement of science and industry which had brought so 
many material advantages and which had been acclaimed 
as the greatest triumph of the human spirit? 
Rise of Against this disastrous outcome of the passionate Eu- 

international- • t • . , i j ,. j' i £ A 

ism among the ropean rivalries a protest, weak and scattered at first, 
middle classes, began to make itself heard. Several streams of opinion 
contributed to swell its current. Among the bourgeoisie 
of the various nations certain large-hearted and broad- 
minded elements, commonly called intellectuals, undertook 
to organize, regardless of political boundaries, in order to 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 545 

supply a counter-weight to the wild jingo spirit which was 
abroad. They emphasized the interests which all the 
nations shared as inheritors of a common civilization and 
met and fraternized in international societies of medicine, 
law, chemistry, physics, and similar divisions of knowledge. 
Other liberal-minded groups organized international peace 
societies which issued periodicals spreading their propa- 
ganda far and wide. Of course they did not fail to point out 
the interesting anomaly that the governments themselves, 
in spite of their predatory tactics, were committed to a 
sort of practical internationalism by virtue of postal, 
railroad, shipping, and other agreements made in obedience 
to the imperative necessities of modern intercourse. 
Finally, the business men, authors of the fierce competi- 
tion, by engaging in larger and ever larger transactions, 
were, in consequence of laws beyond their control, de- 
veloping an internationalism of their own which showed 
itself in a general pooling of their financial interests. In 
the eyes of any man of average enlightenment it was clear 
as day that the unreasonable national-imperialist rivalries, 
though fed by an instinct deep-rooted in the heart of man, 
entailed needless economic waste, besides inflicting heavy 
spiritual injury on humanity as a whole. 

But stronger than among the intellectuals or pacifists intemational- 
or any other group affiliated with the middle class was the ^ socialists!^ 
sentiment of international cooperation among those work- 
ingmen who, deserting trade unionism, had gone over to 
the socialists. For Marxian socialism was avowedly 
anti-national, inasmuch as it was predicated on the class 
action of the workingmen of all the countries of the world. 
On coming together from time to time in a general con- 
gress the socialists, after reaffirming their fixed hostility 
to the existing economic system, regularly denounced the 
imperialist competition of the great powers not only as 



546 Character of European Civilization 

involving the most outrageous land-grabbing and con- 
cession-hunting the world has ever seen but also, and more 
particularly, as constituting the main obstacle to the peace 
which everybody professed to love, 
international The abundant but dispersed peace sentiment abroad 
promoted by in the world received a powerful impetus when in August, 
ConSnSfof l8o8 > Czar Nicholas II. issued an invitation to all govern- 
1899 and 1907. ments, large and small, to meet in conference at The Hague 
in order to establish peace, if not permanently, at least on 
a sounder basis than obtained, by means of a general re- 
duction of armaments. The conference took place (1899) 
amidst high hopes, but the nationalist and imperialist 
rivalries were found to be too intense to permit the crea- 
tion of a new international order. A court of arbitration 
was set up at The Hague, to which governments were 
advised to submit their disputes, and the rules of war were 
codified in the interest of a more humane prosecution of 
armed conflicts. That was all. The First Hague con- 
ference was hardly more than a beautiful gesture. The 
same may be said of the Second Hague conference which 
met in 1907 and was even more widely attended by repre- 
sentatives of the governments of the world. Some of the 
ruling minds of Europe showed that they were possessed 
of more than an inkling of what a storm might break from 
the issues of imperialism and competitive armaments, 
but they were obliged to acknowledge their impotence to 
exorcise these two kindred spirits of evil. 
Imperative In view of the scattered influences promoting inter- 

nationaiism^fn nationalism among the middle and working classes and 
s °™ e form or even, to a limited extent, among the governments, it is 
possible to assert that the international movement which 
emphasized what united men rather than what separated 
them, was making headway. The question was whether 
it was making headway fast enough to keep the world from 



At the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 547 

plunging into war. For it was reasonably clear that if 
some form of international cooperation was not found, 
capable of replacing the current international anarchy, a 
catastrophe would be precipitated, terrible and absolutely 
incalculable in its consequences. 

Meanwhile with internationalism as yet but an idea The situation 
cherished by a few far-sighted and constructive groups, Ihe govem- S ° f 
the situation was in control of the governments who, in m ents. 
the main, manipulated the nationalist and imperialist 
rivalries with selfish unconcern for the good of the whole. 
To the negotiations of these governments and to the quar- 
rels which divided them, a breathless story of diplomacy, 
we must now turn our attention. For, as Europe was 
politically organized, the question of peace was bound, in 
the last analysis, to hinge on diplomats and rulers, every- 
where in practically uncontrolled charge of foreign affairs. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



Germany 
dominates the 
diplomatic 
situation after 
1871. 



EUROPEAN DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS FROM 1871 TO I914 
AND THE OUTBREAK OF THE GREAT WAR 

References: C. J. Hayes, A Political and Social His- 
tory of Modern Europe, Vol. II., particularly Part 
V.; Schapiro, Modern and Contemporary Euro- 
pean History, particularly Chapter XXIX.; C. D. 
Hazen, Europe Since 1815; Schurman, The Bal- 
kan Wars; C. Seymour, The Diplomatic Back- 
ground of the War, 1870-1914; W. Lippmann, 
The Stakes of Diplomacy; H. A. Gibbons, The 
New Map of Europe, The New Map of Asia, The 
New Map of Africa; J. B. Scott, Diplomatic Docu- 
ments Relating to the Outbreak of the European 
War; Sidney B. Fay, New Light on the Origin of 
the World War (The American Hist. Review, 1920- 
21). 

The Franco-German war of 1870-71 created a new 
diplomatic situation in Europe. The signal victory won 
by united Germany made the new empire the leading 
continental power and caused the other governments to 
look forward with interest and anxiety to the policy 
which it would adopt. Bismarck, who, as the architect of 
German unity, enjoyed such authority that he exercised 
undisputed sway over German foreign affairs, was not 
long in disclosing his hand. In order that his country 
might consolidate the result of the three successful wars 
of 1864, 1866, and 1871, it needed, in his view, above all 
things a long peace. Since the only probable disturber 

548 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 549 

of the peace, for the moment at least, was France, which, 
as a defeated power wounded in its deepest feelings by 
the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, was patently animated with 
the hope of revenge, Bismarck applied all his skill to bring 
about the diplomatic isolation of his western neighbor. 
His thought was that France would prove dangerous only 
in case she succeeded in attaching to herself an ally. 

Since Great Britain for the time being kept aloof from Bismarck 
continental affairs, the main factors in Bismarck's cal- League of the 
culation were Russia and Austria-Hungary. Italy, as not ^f^g 
immediately bordering on Germany, could be dismissed 
from the reckoning. Only in case France won the close 
friendship of either Russia or Austria-Hungary would she 
care to risk a war with her Rhenish neighbor. With these 
circumstances in mind Bismarck set to work to attach 
both Russia and Austria-Hungary to Germany and suc- 
ceeded so well that in 1872 the rulers of the three empires 
entered into an alliance with one another. 

However, an agreement yoking together Austria and Shipwreck of 
Russia was a precarious affair and almost certain to go {jheThree Ue ° 
by the boards the moment the Turkish question was ^^J"^" 
mooted between them. Both had for generations enter- question, 
tained with regard to Turkey ambitious and conflicting 
projects which, though often adjourned because of the 
pressure of other interests, had an uncomfortable habit 
of making a periodical reappearance. A grave crisis in 
Turkish affairs in 1875 immediately aligned Russia and 
Austria-Hungary on opposite sides, and when, in 1877, 
Russia went to war with Turkey the Hapsburg govern- 
ment looked on with disapproval, promptly converted to 
alarm, on Russia's winning a brilliant victory and im- 
posing on Turkey the peace of San Stefano. Since Great 
Britain took the Russian successes even more to heart than 
Austria, the two aggrieved governments by acting to- 



55° European Diplomatic Relations from i8yi to IQ14 



Creation of the 
Dual alliance 
of France and 
Russia. 



gether were able to force the czar to a revision of his San 
Stefano treaty at a congress held at Berlin (1878). Russia, 
getting less than she considered her just due, was out- 
raged, blamed her mid-European friends for her discom- 
fiture, and grumblingly withdrew from further coopera- 
tion with them. The Bismarckian league of the Three 
Emperors was at an end. 

Since the bitter competition over Turkey and the 
Balkan peninsula produced a clear case of domestic in- 
compatibility between Austria and Russia, Bismarck was 
obliged to be content with the association of either one 
or the other of his eastern neighbors and chose the Danu- 
bian monarchy. In the year 1879 he took the momentous 
step of concluding a defensive alliance with that state. 
Shortly after occurred an incident destined to bring an 
important accession to the Austro-German partnership: 
France and Italy engaged in a diplomatic clash over the 
Mediterranean. France, already in possession of Algiers, 
desired to extend her African control and in 188 1 seized 
Tunis, nominally a Turkish province, though really an in- 
dependent state. Italy, having herself cast a covetous eye 
on Tunis, resented the action of France, but without avail. 
Here was European imperialism in action with a typical 
seizure of a backward area by one power followed by the 
jealous protest of another. The anti-French indignation 
of Italy mounted to such a point that the Italian govern- 
ment applied to Bismarck for admission to the German 
alliance with Austria, thus converting it (1882) into a 
Triple alliance. 

The Triple alliance of the three central European 
powers, though avowedly defensive in character, directed 
an unmistakable edge against Russia and France and 
operated to draw these two unattached states together. 
Radically dissimilar in political oragnization, the absolute 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 551 

monarchy of the czar and the democratic French re- 
public hesitated a long time before joining hands and for- 
tunes. Finally, in 1890, driven by diplomatic necessity 
and disregarding every consideration but that of safety, 
they effected a preliminary arrangement which in the sub- 
sequent years ripened into a formal alliance. Thus Eu- 
rope before the close of the century fell into the two op- 
posed camps of the Triple and Dual alliances, which main- 
tained a delicate and perilous balance of power, with 
Great Britain moving from one to the other side in the r61e 
of a wandering comet attached to neither system. 

The British governments of the time, Conservative Great Britain 
and Liberal alike, held the view that the two alliances tne°Dual° J ° m 
dividing Europe had crystallized over purely continental aIlianc e- 
matters which interested Great Britain remotely if at 
all, since she was a colonial power almost exclusively 
pursuing objects lying beyond the confines of Europe. In 
consequence Great Britain maintained what was proudly 
proclaimed as "a splendid isolation." However, granting 
that the two alliances were immediately concerned with 
near-by matters, the five member powers involved had 
alike embarked on an imperialist policy and any given 
power, whenever it launched a forward movement in 
Africa or Asia, very naturally turned for support to its 
allies, since it was sure to meet with naught but ill-will and 
resistance from its rivals. Thus imperceptibly the two 
systems extended their influence so as to take in the whole 
world and presently Great Britain found that her isolation 
was injurious, perhaps even dangerous, and that, in order 
to get backing for her own projects, she would be doing 
well to join hands with either the Triple or the Dual 
alliance. After flirting for a while with the Triple alliance, 
with the coming of the twentieth century she veered 
about and definitely threw in her lot with France and 



552 European Diplomatic Relations from 1871 to IQ14 



Industrialized 
Germany be- 
comes colonial 
and 
imperialist. 



Imperialism 
championed by 
the new sover- 
eign, William 
II. 



Russia. This momentous step was chiefly due to the grave 
alarm excited in Great Britain by the economic develop- 
ment and diplomatic policy of Germany. 

We have noted the remarkable industrial and com- 
mercial development of Germany following her unifica- 
tion. True, it was no isolated movement, since the eco- 
nomic expansion was general, a world phenomenon, but 
the German development proceeded apparently at a 
more rapid pace than that of its neighbors, and in any 
case visibly provided Germany, a hitherto backward na- 
tion, with a very capable industrial organization, a vast 
merchant fleet, and commercial relations extending over 
all the earth. Though continuing, from an economic 
viewpoint, to remain inferior to Great Britain, she was 
undoubtedly pressing more and more closely on British 
heels. Then, in the eighties, she embarked on a colonial 
policy, acquiring territory chiefly in Africa. As we have 
seen, colonialism, primarily an economic movement, 
usually develops into imperialism, concerned with terri- 
tory and power, and in the nineties German policy be- 
came definitely imperialist. 

The important change in foreign policy occurred simul- 
taneously with a change of rulers; it may even be said 
to have been at least partly occasioned by that change. 
In 1888 a new sovereign, William II., came to the throne, 
shortly after his accession dismissed Bismarck from office 
(1890), and then with masterful self-sufficiency undertook 
to be his own chancellor "and foreign minister. What 
Bismarck had cautiously refrained from doing, that is, 
from identifying himself with an out-and-out imperialist 
course looking to territory beyond Europe, the ambitious 
William II. took upon himself, and as the most daring 
step toward the realization of his hopes, planned the 
construction of a navy. Hitherto Germany had had no 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 553 

navy worth mentioning, and the innovation was an open 
announcement that she was about to make a bid for sea 
power. 

Sea power was sought and in varying degree possessed The issue of 
by every imperialist power of Europe, but it was un- ranges^Great 
doubtedly a specialty of England. In fact, the British G e rmany gainSt 
empire rested on the control of the seas, and the very 
first German navy bill authorizing expenditure on a large 
scale (1898) caused a shock which made itself felt from 
John o' Groats to Land's End. When the first bill was 
followed by others still further increasing construction, 
Great Britain unhesitatingly took up the challenge, 
strengthened her navy by enormous appropriations, and 
successfully maintained an easy preponderance over 
Germany. She had for generations held to the so-called 
two-power standard, which meant that the British navy 
was always to be a match for any two possible rivals 
combined, and alarmed by the action of the power across 
the North Sea, she attached herself to the programme of 
the two-power standard more ardently than ever. Nor 
was that all. As already said, early in the twentieth 
century, Great Britain made up her mind to give up the 
friendly neutrality which she had so long maintained 
among the European powers and to throw her influence 
into the scales on the side of the Dual alliance and against 
Germany. 

Though the story of Anglo-German rivalry is compli- Great Britain 
cated with innumerable details which have no place here, FrancV&ad t0 
it turns substantially, as indicated, around the question Russia, 
of German imperialism. Tactlessly pushed by Emperor 
William II. in and out of season and given in English 
eyes a formidable character by the feature of a powerful 
navy, German imperialism moved the British govern- 
ment to turn its face to France and Russia and as a meas- 



554 European Diplomatic Relations from 187 1 to igiq. 

ure preliminary to a better understanding with them, to 
attempt an accommodation of all outstanding differences. 
It must be remembered that the French and Russian 
imperialisms had been the most successful imperialisms 
in Europe after that of Great Britain, and that all through 
the nineteenth century the friction among these three 
rivals had been constant. The Crimean War of 1854, to 
mention but a single instance, was a combination of France 
and England formed to hinder Russia from extending her 
power over the decaying Turkish Empire. Since then 
the diplomatic clashes had been frequent, but as between 
France and Russia they had been brought to an effective 
end by the alliance of the nineties. If Great Britain de- 
sired to get support from these two ancient rivals of hers, 
it was plain that she would have to give their ambitions 
larger play, and, fully aware of this condition of success, 
she opened negotiations first with France and then with 
Russia. 
Creation of the In 1904 Great Britain and France came to an agree- 
Agreement ente rnent by virtue of which France, in return for conceding 
over Egypt, Egypt to Great Britain, was given a free hand in Morocco. 

Morocco, and ° , .. , .. , . , 

Persia. Of course the treaty did -not use this crude language be- 

cause certain decencies had to be observed, owing to the 
circumstance that Egypt belonged technically to Turkey 
and that Morocco was an independent state under its 
own Mohammedan ruler. The treaty established what 
became known as the Franco-British entente, a word sig- 
nifying a diplomatic understanding of a less formal char- 
acter than an uncompromising alliance. In 1907 Great 
Britain composed her leading difference with Russia by 
a treaty touching Persia, whereby Russia and Great 
Britain assumed control respectively of northern and 
southern Persia while the shah, hitherto an independent 
sovereign, was left in doubtful possession of the reduced 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 555 

middle section of his ancient kingdom. By these arrange- 
ments Great Britain, France, and Russia began an intimacy 
famous under the name of the Triple entente. Beginning 
with 1907, the alignment of the six great powers of Europe 
took the form of Triple entente versus Triple alliance. 

From the moment Great Britain joined with France The check- 
and Russia, German imperialism labored under disadvan- German* 
tages. Closely examined, each and every imperialism, i m P enal ism. 
directed in accordance with the actual situation in the 
World to the control and seizure of primarily African and 
Asiatic territory, depended on sea power, and with Great 
Britain flanked by France and Russia blocking the sea 
paths, German imperialism was threatened with paralysis. 
At this turn of affairs, the German government was not 
slow to show its chagrin. It complained in acrimonious 
terms about being hampered and hemmed in by a policy 
of encirclement and did its best to hinder the Triple 
entente from disposing of Egypt, Morocco, and Persia 
without consulting Germany or paying it off with some 
sort of compensation. Over Morocco more particularly 
Germany evoked a crisis which repeatedly threatened 
war, but since the Triple entente maintained an unshaken 
front Germany had resentfully to give way and yield 
Morocco to France, after having had thrown her by 
the republic as a sop a relatively worthless piece of cen- 
tral African jungle. 

Her conspicuous failures in distant enterprises made Germany's 
Germany cling all the more resolutely to the imperialist concentrates 
policy she had developed with regard to the one territory on Turkey, 
which was accessible to her by the land route, that is, the 
empire of Turkey. Here her great military power might 
make itself felt without the overwhelming naval power 
of the Triple entente being able to thunder a veto. With 
the new century and in exact measure as her other pros- 



556 European Diplomatic Relations from 187 1 to IQ14 

pects, lying farther afield than the Ottoman empire, began 
to grow dim, Germany concentrated her expansion policy 
more and more keenly upon Turkey. 
Ottoman decay All through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 
covetousness 1 . 11 Turkey, as a decaying power, had excited the territorial 
greed of the European states. At first her most imme- 
diate neighbors, Austria and Russia, gained a rather ex- 
clusive advantage from the decline of the Ottoman might, 
but in the nineteenth century Great Britain and France 
advanced claims which netted France the provinces of 
Algiers and Tunis and Great Britain the fertile land of 
Egypt. When France, under circumstances just recounted, 
acquired Morocco, the action, though not directed 
against Turkey, since Morocco was an independent state, 
once more proved the energy of her imperialist appetite. 
After this consummation the worthless desert of Tripoli 
between Egypt and Tunis stood out as the last stretch 
of north African shoreland outside of European control 
and as the last remnant of Turkey-in- Africa. Unwilling 
to see it gobbled up by Great Britain or France, as it 
was likely to be, Italy in 191 1 suddenly seized and an- 
nexed it with no better excuse than Italy's "mission." 
Like every other European power, Italy was quick to dis- 
cover a "mission" when it came to appropriating a back- 
ward area. 
The rise of the Meanwhile Turkey-in-Europe showed increasing signs of 
being cast for the same fate as her African provinces. 
Austria and Russia, which in the eighteenth century had 
frequently fattened at Ottoman expense, would in the 
nineteenth century have continued the pleasant game, 
if it had not been for the revival of Turkey's subject 
nationalities, the Greeks, the Serbs, the Bulgars, and the 
Roumanians. We have traced the moving tale of how 
they rose, smote their tyrant-master, and after many 



Balkan states. 




THE WORLD POWERS 
OF 1914 

[United States | | Great Britain | | Russia 

( | Germany 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 557 

tribulations won their independence. Before the end of 
the nineteenth century the states formed by the Greeks, 
Roumanians, Serbs, and Bulgars presented the picture of 
hopeful, if somewhat backward, commonwealths of an 
essentially west-European type. 

Though in the light of these developments the Balkan The problems 
situation was in slow process of clarification, several Macedonia and 
serious problems remained which the European powers 
at the congress of Berlin (1878) instead of solving, on 
account of their incurable jealousies, succeeded in involv- 
ing in but worse confusion. One of these problems bears 
the name of Bosnia; another that of Macedonia. Bosnia 
together with the small province of Herzegovina, though 
inhabited by South Slavs (Serbs and Croats), was given 
to Austria, not in sovereignty, it is true, but for an indefi- 
nite occupation capable of being converted, sooner or later, 
by the legerdemain, which was included in the repertory 
of every European foreign office, into unqualified sov- 
ereignty. At the same time Macedonia, the great central 
region of the Balkan peninsula where all its many races 
meet and mingle, was given back to the sultan. For the 
moment the two ill-considered actions, involving a flagrant 
disregard of the principle of nationality, provoked but 
little protest. In the long run, however, they were sure to 
cause difficulty: Bosnia, as between Austria and Serbia, 
which latter would lay claim to Bosnia on the ground of 
its being a land of Serbs; and Macedonia, as between 
Turkey and the various Christian states of the peninsula, 
which would be stirred to liberate Macedonia from Turkish 
misrule and divide it among themselves. 

Around the year 1900 the uninterrupted decay of The great and 
Turkey more than ever impressed observers with the ^ e ™ a ^ take 
conviction that the Ottoman empire was about to dis- out Turkish 

clsims 

appear. And just as Great Britain, France, and Italy 



558 European Diplomatic Relations from 1871 to 191 4 

either had already taken or were about to take action to 
possess themselves of the north coast of Africa, so Austria- 
Hungary and Russia among the great powers, and Greece, 
Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria among the small, were 
on the alert to make, each for itself, the best possible 
bargain touching European Turkey in the event of the 
expected Ottoman demise. While the small powers 
directed their gaze at Macedonia and the contiguous ter- 
ritory of Thrace, Austria counted confidently on convert- 
ing her provisional hold on Bosnia into permanent sov- 
ereignty and Russia turned a glazed and hypnotized eye 
on Constantinople and the adjoining straits. Ever since 
the days of the famous Catherine II. Constantinople 
had been the dream of the czars and each successor of 
Catherine affirmed his belief that when the collapse of 
Turkey at last occurred the Russian imperial standard 
would be planted on the Constantinopolitan minarets. |i 
The German Into this welter of projects excited by Ottoman decay, 

all of them, of course, in fluid state because of the uncer- 
tainties of the situation, Germany now plunged with a 
project of her own. Since every one was making sure of 
some part of the Sultan's lands when the day of division 
came, Germany undertook to stake out a claim in Asia 
Minor, which she looked upon as reasonably accessible 
to a land-power like herself. Asia Minor, almost incred- 
ibly backward because of Turk neglect and ignorance, 
had very luring potentialities from a colonial viewpoint. 
By means of concessions from the Turkish government 
German capitalists gradually built up special interests 
there; they developed, among other matters, a railroad 
policy planned to connect the interior of Asia Minor with 
Constantinople and the sea; and, finally, they acquired 
the famous charter permitting the extension of the exist- 
ing railway system through and beyond Asia Minor to the 



stake. 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 559 

city of Bagdad on the Tigris (1899-1903). Only then did The Bagdad 
Germany's designs become fully manifest. If they worked rai way * 
out Germany would presently exercise control over the 
transportation system and therewith over the resources 
of Asia Minor and would, without more ado, walk into 
complete possession when Turkey's knell was at last 
sounded. 

The prospect produced a tremendous commotion in the Growing 
camp of the Triple entente, particularly at London and of^mperiaiist 1 
Petrograd. As London saw the situation Germany, once rivalries at 
at Bagdad, would only have to run her railway line to nople. 
the Persian Gulf to possess at some future date a land- 
route from central Europe to the Orient considerably 
shorter than the water-route via the Suez Canal con- 
trolled by Great Britain. In the eyes of Petrograd, on 
the other hand, the evil of a trunk line under German 
management lay rather in its giving Germany control of 
the Turk capital, thereby proving absolutely fatal to the 
ancient hopes entertained by Russia touching Constan- 
tinople and the straits. Protests, claims, and counter- 
claims filled the columns of the press and echoed through 
the halls of the European parliaments. Though the rival 
European imperialisms were clashing at many points, 
they met at Constantinople, in connection with the Bag- 
dad railway project, with greater vehemence than any- 
where else, because the Bagdad project, if realized, would 
extend German power in a manner perilous to every 
member of the entente. 

In spite of the diplomatic defeats administered to German plans 
Germany by the entente in connection with Morocco and supported by 
Persia, the German government persisted in the Bagdad threatened by 
scheme, making steady headway with the construction of er ia ' 
the line in the years following 1903. While the entente was 
resolute that the invaluable railway must not be monopo- 



560 European Diplomatic Relations from 187 1 to IQ14 

lized by Germany, it could for the moment apply no con- 
venient lever to the situation, especially as Turkey at- 
tached herself so closely to Germany that she was soon 
no better than Germany's subservient tool. Then a faint 
possibility, hardly considered at first, dawned in Serbia. 
Through this little state ran the railroad which linked 
Berlin and Vienna with Constantinople and of which the 
projected Bagdad line was in effect nothing more than 
the Asiatic extension. Midway on the stretch between 
Vienna and the Golden Horn lay Belgrad, the capital of 
Serbia, and, what is more, the natural door into the Balkan 
house from central Europe. A hostile Belgrad might con- 
ceivably become an insuperable obstacle to the south- 
eastward advance of Germany and her ally, Austria. 
Now Serbia, as we have seen, had been made bitterly 
hostile to Austria because Austria had occupied Bosnia, 
to which Serbia on nationalist grounds laid claim. Serbia, 
therefore, exercised a potential check on the Austro- 
German plans of eastern penetration and, properly en- 
couraged by Russia and the other members of the entente, 
might prove a considerable nuisance. Under these cir- 
cumstances little Serbia was lifted to an accidental and 
dizzy eminence, becoming a leading center of European 
intrigue where Triple alliance and Triple entente fought 
a bitter diplomatic battle over the absorbing issue of 
Balkan ascendency. 
TheAustro- Suddenly, in 1908, came a crisis which brought war 

igo8. CnS1 knocking at the door of Europe. In order to put an end 

to all further debate as to her relations to Bosnia, Austria, 
in October of that year, issued a proclamation converting 
her occupation of Bosnia, conceded at the Congress of 
Berlin, into formal sovereignty. Serbia, backed by the 
entente, violently protested against this high-handed as- 
sumption of new rights, and on Germany's supporting 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 561 

Austria the strain became terrible. War hung on a thread 
and was only averted by the entente's gradually with- 
drawing its support from Serbia. The last entente power to 
yield was Russia, which finally in March, 1909, notified the 
Serb government not to expect any help in an eventual 
war with the Danubian monarchy. Serbia, isolated, was 
obliged to promise Austria to discontinue her protest 
about Bosnia, and the first Austro-Serb crisis, properly 
a general Balkan crisis involving all the varied Near-East 
interests of the two rival leagues, came to an end — a very 
provisional end — with an Austro-German victory. 

And now crisis followed on the heel of crisis in that Steady 
simmering witch's kettle of the Balkans. Space forbids BaScrisfs. 
us to do more than mention the Young Turk revolution 
(1908), which deposed the Sultan Abdul Hamid II., and 
the Albanian rising (19 10), which proclaimed the awaken- 
ing of the last of the submerged Balkan nationalities. 
Aiming to concentrate on the absolutely indispensable 
events, we shall follow the issue precipitated by the cruel 
situation of Macedonia until the Austro-Serb crisis of 
1908, supposedly settled, rose, like Banquo's ghost, from 
the grave, and this time applied the torch to Europe 
and to the world. 

The misery which with the coming of the new century The Balkan 
overtook the Turkish province of Macedonia beggars de- war of IQI2 ' 
scription. Its many racial groups, moved by the spirit 
of militant nationalism, engaged in bloody internecine 
war, which the Ottoman overlords, owing to their habitual 
inefficiency, were unable to suppress. Small wonder that 
the Christian states bordering on Macedonia at last re- 
solved, in their own interest, to bring the Macedonian 
chaos to an end. Forming an alliance, Bulgaria, Serbia, 
Greece, and Montenegro, impatient of further delay, in 
October, 1912, declared war on the Sultan. Taken by 



562 European Diplomatic Relations from iSyi to IQ14 

surprise and completely defeated on every front, the Turks 
were in May, 1913, obliged to sue for peace. The jubi- 
lant victors demanded the cession not only of the dis- 
puted Macedonia but also of Thrace to within a few miles 
of Constantinople. Except for the capital and the all- 
important area of the straits, Turkey-in-Europe had come 
to an end. 
The second It might have been better if the allied success had not 

igi3. an Wa been so great, for over the extensive Turkish spoils the 
intoxicated victors promptly came to blows. In the sum- 
mer of 1913 a second Balkan war was fought in which 
Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro were pitted against Bul- 
garia, and though powerful enough by themselves to finish 
the enemy, they were supported by Roumania and even 
received aid of an indirect nature from their late enemy, 
Turkey. Of course Bulgaria was swiftly overwhelmed, 
and when in August, 19 13, peace was signed at Bucharest 
and the booty distributed, the victors took what they 
pleased, leaving Bulgaria completely out of the reckoning. 
More particularly Macedonia, racially indeed a mixed 
area but preponderantly Bulgarian, was partitioned be- 
tween Serbia and Greece. Everything considered, the 
two Balkan wars had wrought a distinct benefit in so far 
as they had effected the elimination of the barbarous 
Turk from the lands in which he was essentially an alien 
and which for generations he had exploited and misgov- 
erned; but unfortunately they left also a heritage of 
hate among the Christian powers because the victors, like 
victors from the dawn of time, could not refrain in their 
hour of triumph from punishing the vanquished in such 
a manner as to leave a gnawing resentment in his soul. 
The renewed It was the curse of the Balkan situation that though 
crisfsof 1914. disturbance followed disturbance nothing was ever set- 
tled. The Serb crisis of 1908, for instance — was it pos- 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 563 

sible to speak of its Settlement so long as the Serb nation- 
alist aspirations turned longingly toward the neighboring 
province of Bosnia, and Belgrad, the capital, continued 
a focus of international intrigue? Big Austria and little 
Serbia continued to exchange bitter looks and words 
which gained, if anything, an added malignancy after 
Serbia's triumph in the Balkan wars of 191 2 and 1913. 
Having in rapid succession defeated the Turks and the 
Bulgarians and having doubled their territory, the Serbs 
were in no mood to be cowed by Austrian threats. With 
so much inflammable material lying about, any chance 
occurrence might well precipitate an explosion. Sud- 
denly on June 28, 1914, the news went round the world 
that a number of Bosnian youths, carried away by the 
Serb nationalist agitation, had murdered the heir to the 
Austrian throne, the archduke Francis Ferdinand, to- 
gether with his wife, as they were driving through the 
streets of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Here was the 
Serb crisis back again and alarmed Europe, expecting the 
worst, straightway went taut with anxiety. 

This time Austria resolved on nothing less than the The Austrian 
complete humiliation of Serbia. On July 23, 1914, the serWafo^owed 
Viennese government presented a peremptory ultimatum by war - 
at Belgrad intended to crush Serb nationalist agitation 
once and for all. On Serbia's refusing to meet the Aus- 
trian demands without reservation or discussion, Austria, 
on July 25, broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia 
and three days later declared war on its little neighbor. 

The Austrian programme being to punish Serbia for a Russia resolves 

nationalist policy which made relations of good neighbor- serbia'and 

hood impossible, it behooved the Austrian government to partially 

. ° mobilizes, 

attempt to make this policy acceptable to the world and 

particularly to the members of the Triple entente, Serbia's 

official spokesmen. To promote this purpose Austria 



564 European Diplomatic Relations from iSji to IQ14 

issued a promise to the effect that no territorial acquisi- 
tions from Serbia were contemplated. But Russia, which, 
as the leading Slav power, felt closest to Serbia and which 
moreover had enormous interests at stake in the Balkans, 
refused to be placated by the Austrian territorial assur- 
ance. Russia took the position that she could not possibly 
remain indifferent in a war between Austria and Serbia, 
and as early as July 25 ordered a partial mobilization of 
her troops. With that bold act the Serb crisis entered 
upon a new phase, raising the question of a war among 
the powers. And immediately the interest shifted to the 
leading European chancelleries and particularly to Berlin. 
The question Throughout the crisis precipitated by the murder of 
mobilization the archduke Germany gave her ally's policy a full and 
raised between unwavering support because she, perhaps even more than 
Russia. Austria, felt exasperated with Serbia, which by the head- 

strong pursuit of her nationalist programme reared a fatal 
obstacle across the German road to the Near-East. She 
therefore voluntarily took upon herself the task of try- 
ing to persuade Russia to concede to Austria a punitive 
expedition into Serbia in exchange for the Austrian pledge 
not to annex Serbian territory. Russia, alarmed about 
Serbia and her own probable loss of prestige in the Balkans, 
refused to entertain the idea and, as already said, on 
July 25, took the decisive step of effecting a partial 
mobilization of her forces. From that moment Germany 
turned her attention to the new phenomenon. She noti- 
fied Russia that if the mobilization continued, Austria, 
which had thus far mobilized only on the Serbian border, 
would have to arm to meet the Russian movement, and, 
further, that if the Russian mobilization became general, 
extending to the German border, Germany in her turn 
would have to issue a general mobilization order, making 
war inevitable. 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 565 

In this connection it should be remembered that under The Russian 

,1 •.•-!- j. c • , T , mobilization of 

the existing European system 01 universal military serv- j u i y 30 f i_ 
ice a general mobilization empties the fields and work- q^ ^ y the 
shops, converts millions of men in the twinkling of an declaration of 
eye into soldiers, and sets the whole social and economic August 1. 
framework of a nation throbbing with war. In spite of the 
German warnings, the czar, assured of French support and 
of the probable support of Great Britain, continued a pro- 
gressive mobilization which culminated in the early even- 
ing hours of July 30 in the fateful general order calling 
every eligible Russian to arms throughout the length and 
the breadth of the empire. On this action being reported 
at Berlin, the German Government despatched an ulti- 
matum to Petrograd setting Russia a time limit of twelve 
hours to withdraw her measure. When Russia ignored 
the request, the German emperor, in the late afternoon of 
August 1, ordered general mobilization in his turn and at 
the same time declared war on Russia. 

It is thus clear that the European War began over the While France 
clashing Austro-German and Russian imperialist designs automatically 
in the Near-East and particularly over the Austro-German he'sltates" 13111 
resolve to remove the stubborn resistance of little Serbia 
from the otherwise unimpeded road to Asia. But war 
once begun, it was sure, owing to the treaty obligations, 
as well as to the interests of the various powers, to rapidly 
extend its circle. On France, for instance, the effect of 
the Russian-German breach was instantaneous, for France 
was so closely bound to Russia that she could not do other- 
wise than interpret the Russian general mobilization as the 
signal for the expected general war. The case of Great 
Britain was not quite so simple. Toward Russia the British 
government had only informal obligations, while, though 
bound in a formal, specific way toward France, it had kept 
the agreement secret and was nervously uncertain whether 



566 European Diplomatic Relations from 187 1 to IQ14 



The German 
breach of 
Belgian 
neutrality fol- 
lowed by the 
declaration of 
war of Great 
Britain. 



While Italy 
proclaims her 
neutrality, 
Japan declares 
war on 
Germany. 



the parliament and public would permit it to live up to 
its self -assumed obligation. 

From this embarrassing situation, which, to the alarm 
of Russia and France, kept Great Britain hanging fire, 
the British cabinet was extricated by an ill-considered 
and indefensible act of Germany, the violation of the 
neutrality of Belgium. In her desire to get at France 
without delay Germany, on August 2, requested at Brus- 
sels an unmolested passage for her troops through Bel- 
gium, and when the demand was indignantly rejected, 
Germany, on August 4, committed an unprovoked act of 
war against Belgium by sending troops across the 
border. As soon as the violation of Belgian neutrality 
became known across the channel, it released a storm 
of furious resentment, and the ministry, only privately 
pledged to come to the aid of France, was enabled to 
merge the French and Belgian issues before the par- 
liament and public and amidst the passionate acclaim 
of the whole island to declare war on Germany (Au- 
gust 5). 

The feverish attention of the world now swung to Italy. 
As a member of the Triple alliance she was expected in 
some quarters to throw in her lot with Germany and 
Austria, but after brief consideration she declared that 
Austria had begun an offensive war which released Italy, 
only defensively bound, from the obligation of coming to 
her ally's support. For the present she adopted a waiting 
attitude. Not so Japan. Bound by treaty to Great 
Britain, she resolved to seize the opportunity afforded 
by the embarrassment of Germany of ejecting the Teu- 
tonic power from her Far-Eastern possessions on the 
Shantung peninsula in China and on August 17 served 
an ultimatum on the German emperor followed shortly 
after by a declaration of war. 



And the Outbreak of the Great War 567 

Thus the Balkan issue, with which the war began, was Every 
found to be so intimately tied up with every other issue j ssue thrown 
of European imperialism, and the competing powers, ^b^of 6 the" 
sharply ranged in two groups, were found to be so deeply World War. 
pledged to one another that the Serb-Austrian disturb- 
ance, affecting a comparatively small area in central 
Europe, became in the course of a few days a conflagra- 
tion which spread until the whole of Europe, the depend- 
ent colonial areas of Africa and Asia, and all the high- 
ways of the sea were lighted with the fierce glare of war. 
Germany and Austria faced Russia, France, Great Britain, 
and Japan (not to mention Serbia and Belgium), while 
Italy, neutral for the moment, anxiously tried to make 
up her mind which way to jump. Never since the dawn 
of history had the world rocked with such an earthquake. 
The human rancors, piled mountain-high by the too ardent 
pursuit ever since the industrial revolution of selfish ma- 
terial and imperialist aims, suddenly leaping to flame 
enveloped the globe with a ring of fire and raised the 
question whether the appalling spectacle unfolded before 
the eyes of men was not the end of civilization itself and 
the twilight of all the ancient gods. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE WAR AND THE PEACE 

References: Schapiro, Modern and Contemporary 
European History, Chapter XXX.; Olgin, The 
Soul of the Russian Revolution; C. de Visscher, 
Belgium's Case; Toynbee, Nationality and the 
War; Dominian, The Frontiers of Nationality and 
Language in Europe; Simonds, The Great War; 
C. J. H. Hayes, A Brief History of the Great War; 
Haskins and Lord, Some Problems of the Peace 
Conference; J. M. Keynes, The Economic Conse- 
quences of the Peace; A. P. Scott, An Introduc- 
tion to the Peace Treaties; John F. Bass, The 
Peace Tangle; R. Lansing, The Peace Negotia- 
tions; A. Tardieu, The Truth about the Treaty. 

It is hardly necessary to say that it will be impossible 
in a book of this scope to do more than call attention to 
a few leading facts and aspects of the World War. Im- 
portant matters of great and legitimate concern will have 
to be resolutely excluded from consideration. There will 
be no description either of the instruments which have 
revolutionized warfare on land and water, the giant gun, 
the scouting and bombing airplane, the trench-bomb, the 
tank, poison gas, the submarine, or of the altered tactics 
and strategy imposed upon generals and admirals by the 
new tools of destruction. Attention will not be directed 
to the outstanding personalities of the various nations, 
the conspicuous and fast-shifting leaders in the field and 

568 



The War and the Peace 569 

council-chamber, nor to the heated domestic politics of 
each warring nation, including such matters as its pro and 
anti-war groups, the search for revenue to meet the vastly 
increased expenses, and the measures of economic reorgan- 
ization for war production on a titanic scale. Our concern 
will be solely to set down a few salient features of the 
prolonged fighting, notably such as profoundly influenced 
the issue, and to define and interpret the peace which the 
victors dictated to the defeated central powers. 

When Germany broke the neutrality of Belgium, in The purpose of 
spite not only of the certainty of adding Great Britain to striking at n 
her enemies but also of the opprobrium which she knew Bd£urn hr ° Ugh 
beforehand would be visited upon her for her act, she dis- 
closed the extreme importance she attached to the swift 
defeat of France. France once disposed of, Germany 
would turn upon Russia, which country, owing to its un- 
wieldy bulk, the German general staff supposed would get 
ready slowly and not prove immediately threatening. 
There followed the rapid march of August, 1914, through 
Belgium and northern France. It was bravely resisted 
by the small Belgian army and the forts along the Meuse, 
aided by the English and French troops hurrying up to 
stem the tide, but, conducted with superior numbers and 
equipment, it broke for a while through every obstacle. 
Not till the Germans were almost within sight of Paris, 
their military objective, were they stopped by a direct 
frontal attack combined with a flanking movement which 
threatened to envelop their right wing. The battle, 
lasting several days (September 5-10), is famous as the 
battle of the Marne. The Germans, beaten, had to re- 
treat to the Aisne, where they entrenched. They had 
failed to reach Paris and failed to win a smashing victory 
over France. Therefore they had lost the campaign, and 
though by way of compensation the)'- succeeded in oc- 



57o 



The War and the Peace 



The deadlock 
on the western 
front. 



The Russian 
invasion of 
Germany and 
Austria. 



cupying and holding almost the whole of Belgium and 
certain very valuable coal and iron-producing regions of 
northern and eastern France, they were thenceforth 
gravely exposed whenever their enemies became strong 
enough to attack in their turn. 

This theoretic peril of the Germans, due to the long 
line of communications which they were obliged to main- 
tain, was in practice greatly reduced for them by their 
resort to trench warfare, the so-called war of positions. 
Adopted by one side, it had, for the sake of safety, to be 
adopted also by the other. Both sides dug themselves in, 
forming an immense zigzagging battle-line stretching for 
six hundred miles all the way from the sea at Nieuport 
(Belgium) to the Alps on the German-Swiss border. 
During the next few years first one side and then another 
undertook an offensive with the purpose of breaking 
through, and though some of these attacks were conducted 
on a vast scale, as, for instance, when in the spring of 191 6 
the Germans tried to break through at Verdun or when 
in the summer of the same year the British and French 
conducted the campaign of the Somme, the battle-front, 
generally speaking, remained unchanged until March, 
1918. For almost four years the situation on the western 
and decisive front was deadlocked. 

Just as the German supreme command had miscal- 
culated the resistance of the combined French, British, 
and Belgian armies, so it indulged in a wrong assumption 
as to the mobilization of Russia. The rush toward France 
was, as we have seen, predicated on the slow movement of 
the Russian army. The Russian army, however, con- 
ducted its mobilization not only rapidly but with enor- 
mous effectives and undertook, while the German army was 
sweeping on to Paris, to drive across the plains of the 
Vistula and the Oder to Vienna and Berlin. The German 



The War and the Peace 571 

forces were driven from most of East Prussia, the Aus- 
trians from eastern Galicia before a German counter- 
attack at Tannenburg (August 26-September 1) turned 
the Russian advance to a disastrous rout. Hindenburg, 
the German commander, followed up his victory by 
crossing the Russian boundary and invading Poland and 
Lithuania. 

The Austrians, however, in their sector had no such The Russian 
iuck as the Germans and continued to give way until the 
Russians threatened the forts of Cracow and extended an 
indirect menace to Vienna itself. Thus matters stood till 
May, 191 5, when the Austro-Germans combined in a vast 
offensive which pushed back the Russians at every point 
and ended in their complete defeat. Not only did the 
central powers now drive far into Russia but they suc- 
ceeded in so severely crippling the Russian equipment by 
the destruction and capture of material that the great 
Slav empire began to show signs of approaching exhaus- 
tion. True, it manifested fine daring by engaging, in the 
summer of 19 16, in a partially successful offensive against 
Austria conducted by General Brusiloff, but thereafter 
the army showed little fight, partly through discourage- 
ment and partly because of the civil break-up behind the 
battle-line which is the usual accompaniment of defeat. 

The war had in the first instance led to a great out- The Russian 
burst of patriotism and unified Russia as it unified, through *g™ foUowed 
the same patriotic sentiment, every other fighting coun- ^ P eace with 
try. But the old social and political divisions continued 
to stir uneasily under the surface, and when the Russian 
defeats took place the angered public laid the blame on 
the well-known incompetence and corruption of the 
czarist regime. In March, 191 7, an uprising took place in 
Petrograd which immediately gathered such momentum 
among both civilians and soldiers that the czar, deserted 



572 The War and the Peace 

by his people, was obliged to abdicate. What next? 
The absolute system had crashed to the ground: would a 
moderate middle-class or a radical socialist regime suc- 
ceed it? The first result was a compromise, certain middle- 
class groups cooperating with a moderate wing of the 
socialists and conducting a government pledged to the 
allies and resolved to keep Russia in the war against 
Germany. Through the summer of 191 7 this government, 
becoming ever more radical, struggled on only to meet 
defeat in the end at the hands of the extreme socialists, 
known as the Bolsheviki. In November these extremists 
set up their uncompromising revolutionary rule. From 
the point of view of the war, which alone concerns us here, 
the enormous significance of the triumph of Lenin and 
Trotsky, the Bolshevik leaders, was that they resolved to 
take Russia out of the struggle by making peace with 
Germany. This peace Germany, a victorious, militarist 
power, ruthlessly imposed on the beaten enemy at Brest- 
Litovsk in March, 1918. By virtue of this treaty Russia 
renounced title to the vast western borderland, including 
Finland, the Baltic provinces (Esthonia, Livonia, Cour- 
land), Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine, all conquered by 
her since the days of Peter the Great and inhabited by a 
great variety of races but in no case by Russians, except 
in scattered groups which had gradually drifted westward 
from the Russian home-land, 
interdepend- An obvious drawback of the method here adopted of 
fighting a fronts. treating each battie-^ront in turn is that it fails to bring 
out the intimate coherence of events in the east and west. 
The campaigns on these two fronts and on all fronts what- 
ever should, especially if military enlightenment is sought, 
be studied as a unit. Fighting in the east constantly af- 
fected the situation in the west and vice versa, as will 
appear by glancing back once more, for the purpose of 



The War and the Peace 573 

illustration, to 19 14. The Franco-British forces won the 
decisive battle of the Marne, but this victory was due, in 
part at least, to the unexpected invasion by Russia of East 
Prussia and to the consequent diversion by Germany of 
troops, destined for the west front, to her eastern marches. 

This intimate concatenation of happenings in all The Balkan 
quarters should be borne in mind as we turn next to trace affectedlby^he 
the course of events on the Balkan front. The war, t^wa/of^ 
though beginning in the Balkans as a conflict between Turkey. 
Austria and Serbia, assumed so overshadowing an im- 
portance on the west and east fronts, where millions of 
men were under arms, that the Balkan front where Aus- 
tria, because of having her hands full with Russia, made 
but a feeble effort, sank into relative insignificance. But 
not for long. Early in November, 19 14, the central 
powers were greatly strengthened in their struggle by 
being joined by Turkey. Turkey's entrance into the war, 
due to the friendship existing between the Young Turks, 
the political masters of the Ottoman empire, and Germany, 
profoundly affected the situation in the Balkans and for 
that matter in large areas of the Mediterranean Sea and 
the whole Near-East. Russia, in particular, was hard 
hit, for the Bosphorus and Dardanelles were immediately 
closed to the ships of the entente, with the result that 
Russia was unable to receive the military supplies of which 
she stood in need. Her defeat in the campaign of 1915 
was partly due to this circumstance, once more exhibiting 
the close interdependence of events on every fighting front. 
It was to break the intolerable barrier at the straits and 
establish the sorely needed contact with Russia that the 
western powers undertook their first Balkan campaign. 

In February, 191 5, a Franco-British squadron suddenly The Galiipoli 
attacked the Dardanelles with the purpose of silencing campalgnsof 
the Turkish forts and forcing a passage to Constantinople. IQI5> 



574 The War and the Peace 

On losing in this hazardous enterprise several large battle- 
ships, the allies changed their plans and began to land 
troops, British for the most part, on the Gallipoli penin- 
sula, with the object of taking the forts from the rear. All 
summer this campaign continued at ruinous cost, only to 
be acknowledged a failure and to be given up at the 
coming of winter. What gave the enterprise the finishing 
blow was a new and important development in Serbia. 
A recognized minor area of conflict, the little Slav king- 
dom was not seriously molested by the Austrians till De- 
cember, 1914, when an Austrian invasion was victoriously 
repulsed. Almost a year later, in October, 1915, Serbia 
was threatened with a second and more serious crisis. 
An Austro-German force under the German general, 
Mackensen, gathered on the Danube opposite Belgrad, 
while the Bulgars, elated by the prospect of revenge upon 
the Serbs for the loss of Macedonia in the second Balkan 
war of 1913, resolved to give up their neutrality and join 
the central powers. While Mackensen pushed southward 
from the Danube, the Bulgarian army attacked Serbia 
from the east, that is, in the Vardar valley. The entrance 
of Bulgaria into the war was a commanding event, be- 
cause it planted the central powers firmly in the heart of 
the Balkan peninsula, and when Serbia was now overrun, 
together with Montenegro and most of Macedonia and 
Albania, the longed-for, unimpeded connection between 
Berlin and Constantinople was at last made perfect. 
The Balkan Thus the year 19 1 5 proved a very prosperous one for 

to^hoose Ides. Germany, since it brought the realization of the dream of 
a Middle Europe under German direction extending from 
the North Sea to the Dardanelles. The only offset for 
the Franco-British forces was the occupation of the Greek 
city of Saloniki at the head of the ^Egean and the suc- 
cessful establishment there of a military base strong 



The War and the Peace 575 

enough to save southern Macedonia from the central 
allies, to threaten Bulgaria with a future offensive, and to 
force Greece, although only after long and timorous 
fluctuation, into the rank of the allies. The definite 
accession of Greece to the entente came about in 191 7, 
not till after the remaining Balkan power, Roumania, 
had passed through a disastrous experience. The whole 
history of the war goes to show that the small powers of 
the Balkans, so deeply involved in some of the main 
issues of the struggle, could not remain neutral. But to 
choose sides was a very delicate matter because it was 
far from clear which side would prove victorious. And yet 
life itself hung on the decision, for these small govern- 
ments were but helpless pawns in the game of the great 
powers and were sure to be ruined if they crossed the path 
of some irresistible onsweeping force. For their part, 
the two opposed European groups recognized the value 
of the accession to their respective sides of a Balkan 
combatant and hotly bid against each other for favor at 
all the Balkan capitals. In this way it came about that 
Turkey and Bulgaria, lured by the prospect of profit, 
joined the central powers, that Greece, after long delay, 
joined to the entente allies, and that Roumania, even before 
the Greek decision came, ranged herself on the same side. 

It was in August, 191 6, that Roumania threw in her Defeat and 
lot with the allies with the result that she was straight- RoumaXa^ 
way attacked from two sides, badly mauled, and almost 1916. 
entirely occupied by the central powers. In the winter, 
1916-17, Germany was apparently more securely en- 
trenched in the Balkans than ever. The only cloud on 
the horizon was the allied front firmly maintained at 
Saloniki. 

A last European front remains to be listed, the southern The Italian 
or Alpine front created when Italy, terminating the neu- 



576 The War and the Peace 

trality proclaimed by her at the outbreak of the war, 
threw in her lot with the entente. This happened in 
May, 1 91 5, and was immediately followed by an attack 
in force on Austria along the whole of the Italo-Austrian 
mountain border. Slow Italian advances culminated in 
the capture of the city and fortress of Gorizia in the sum- 
mer of 1916. In the autumn of 191 7, however, the gains 
made were lost and much else besides when the Austrians, 
aided by German troops, broke through the Italian lines 
at Caporetto, captured many men and much equipment, 
and were not brought to a halt till they reached the line 
of the Piave River, northeast of Venice. In the spring of 
1918 Italy was a source of grave anxiety to the entente 
which, however, the events of the summer and autumn 
of that year scattered to the winds by revealing the 
recovered morale and resistance of the Italian troops. 
The campaigns At this point, though chiefly concerned with Europe, 
Turkey. 10 we must at least indicate the leading conflict-areas out- 

side the little continent. The diminished Ottoman em- 
pire of the twentieth century was largely Asiatic, em- 
bracing Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. 
In all these provinces the vast struggle raged with the 
main feature of an attack by Russia and Great Britain 
upon the shaking Ottoman house. Russia made her for- 
ward thrust from the Caucasus into Asia Minor and con- 
ducted it, on the whole, victoriously until her collapse at 
home in 1917. Great Britain followed two separate and 
converging lines of penetration, the first leading from the 
Persian gulf into Mesopotamia, the second from the 
isthmus of Suez into Palestine and Syria. In spite of 
difficulties and setbacks these British offensives pro- 
ceeded steadily, culminating in the year 1918 in a series 
of victories which occasioned the total collapse of 
Turkey. 



The War and the Peace 577 

Inevitably, too, every German colony was at least a The war in the 
potential fighting area. But owing to the small German colonies, 
forces abroad and their inability to receive reinforcements 
on account of the British control of the seas, most of the 
colonies fell with little resistance into the lap of the allies. 
Thus the German stronghold in China, Kiau-chau, was 
taken by the Japanese after a few weeks' siege, and the 
scattered German forces in Southwest Africa and in 
German East Africa were gradually picked up, largely in 
guerrilla fighting, by the British or rather by the British 
colonial forces of South Africa. 

Having enumerated, however briefly, the main fighting The decisive 
areas on land, we must now turn to take account of the ^ a ^ower° 
sea. Perhaps, when all is said, the sea-front was the 
greatest of all the fighting fronts, or, to speak more accu- 
rately, the most decisive. The dominating factor in the 
situation was Great Britain's control of the world's sea- 
ways by means of her overwhelming naval forces. Her 
fleet at once drove the German fleet and merchant ship- 
ping from the ocean, gradually captured the merchantmen 
which failed to reach a safe port, and pursued and finally 
destroyed such German raiders as undertook to prey upon 
the enemy commerce. At the same time the British es- 
tablished a long-distance blockade of the German coasts 
in order to deprive Germany of needed supplies and, to 
make the measure thoroughly effective, began the regu- 
lation and control of neutral commerce, above all, of that 
of Holland and the Scandinavian countries adjacent to 
Germany, and of that of the United States, the greatest 
producer of raw products in the world. To meet this 
situation Germany had a gambler's chance in the mys- 
terious and as yet untried weapon of the submarine. 
She declared in her turn the British coast in a state of 
blockade and attempted to make good her threat against 



578 



The War and the Peace 



The neutral 
rights of the 
United States 
injured by 
Great Britain 
and Germany. 



vessels seeking British ports with a fleet of submarine 
vessels. But while the British blockade of Germany was 
wholly effective because no merchant vessel, neutral or 
otherwise, could pass into the North Sea without being 
detected by the British guard-ships, the German blockade 
of the extensive British coasts was at best casual and 
would depend, to be even partially effective, on the sub- 
marine's sinking its prize since there was small chance of 
bringing it safely some hundreds of miles to a German 
port. However, to sink a ship with its cargo had the very 
evil feature of imperilling the lives of passengers and crew 
since the submarine, hardly more than a toy, though a 
toy with a sting, was unable to take the victims on board 
and had no better alternative to offer them than the 
chance of reaching shore in life-boats. 

Over this situation the United States was drawn into 
the struggle. When the war broke out the great Ameri- 
can republic at once declared its neutrality and with his 
aloofness the citizen body was for a long time satisfied, 
although public sentiment from the first overwhelmingly 
favored the entente. Many factors contributed to this 
state of mind, most conspicuously the humanitarian in- 
dignation aroused by the outrage done by Germany to 
Belgium in seizing and holding the little land in an iron 
military vise. But the war came close, was woven into 
the texture of daily American experience chiefly through 
the interests of American commerce. It was plain that 
Great Britain was determined to make the United States 
sell goods exclusively to her and her allies, and it was 
just as plain that Germany was minded to have her share 
of American articles, failing which, she was resolved to 
interrupt the supply of Great Britain with her submarine 
weapon. Purposing with deadly intensity to hurt each 
other, they instituted their respective blockades as well 



The War and the Peace 579 

as strict measures regulative of sea-borne trade which 
unquestionably signified a serious encroachment on the 
rights of neutrals and therefore of the United States. 

Protesting against the illegal ordinances of both com- The United 
batants, President Wilson began a lively exchange of the war over 
diplomatic notes with London and Berlin. From the ^submarine 
first, however, the notes exchanged with Germany had a 
special edge, absent in the case of Great Britain, because 
Germany's breaches of the sea law, involving the use of 
the novel weapon, the submarine, imperilled American 
lives and thereby deeply stirred the sentiment of humanity, 
already aroused over the invasion of Belgium. The dip- 
lomatic argument was still being conducted in rather gen- 
eral terms when there occurred an event which sharply 
defined the issue between the two countries. On May 7, 
191 5, a German submarine torpedoed and sank without 
warning the British liner Lusitania, pitilessly drowning 
over a thousand men, women, and children, over a hun- 
dred of them of American nationality The indignation 
in the United States was so intense that the American 
government passed immediately from discussion to com- 
mand and insisted that the submarine conform to the laws 
of the sea and the rules of humanity, in a word, that its 
unrestricted use cease forthwith. The German govern- 
ment yielded, and though there were occasional trans- 
gressions of the conditions laid down by the United States, 
a precarious peace was maintained till January 31, 191 7, 
when the German government published a declaration 
notifying the neutral world of its determination to resort 
without more ado to the unrestricted use of its tool. 
Plainly the British octopus grip, continued for over two 
years, had begun to tell in the starvation and reduced 
production of Germany. The German leaders themselves 
admitted it and justified the ruthless employment of the 



580 The War and the Peace 

submarine on the ground of its being the sole means in 
their power of getting back at Great Britain with her 
own programme of hunger and isolation. President Wilson 
promptly broke off diplomatic relations and on April 6, 
1917, the Congress of the United States declared war on 
Germany. The die was cast. 
The motives At this juncture it becomes necessary to analyze the 

American the motives and programme with which the United States 
public. entered the war. The struggle had been going on for 

over two and a half years before the fateful decision was 
taken. During this time opinion had had time to inform 
itself as well as to arrive at some kind of judgment touch- 
ing the merits of the case and to shape some kind of pro- 
gramme in the event of America's participation. Owing 
to the small attention paid in the United States to affairs 
in Europe, the bewilderment over the sudden conflagra- 
tion of 1914 was extreme and the neutrality proclaimed by 
President Wilson was largely welcome as affording an op- 
portunity for study and reflection. Gradually light broke 
and the conviction became general that the war was the 
result of a chain of rivalries and rancors reaching back for 
generations and involving every sort of bitter contention 
over markets, raw products, colonies, military and naval 
establishments, in sum, that it was an issue of imperialism. 
Inseparably fused with this judgment, however, was the 
humanitarian horror aroused by the orgy of killing which 
had seized on Europe. In the face of it the cry was raised 
that this must be the last war, it must be "the war to end 
wars." Slowly a far-reaching idealist programme crystal- 
lized which aimed at nothing less than at the abolition of 
the evil practices and institutions most immediately in 
evidence, such as militarism, secret diplomacy, autocratic 
government, and hostile balanced alliances, and which 
proposed to replace them with a universal league pledged 



The War and the Peace 581 

to preserve peace and maintain justice. And since Ger- 
many by her rape of Belgium, by her narrow, military 
code of conduct, and by her reckless pursuit of victory 
regardless of considerations of humanity illustrated the 
evils from which the world suffered more completely than 
any other state, the idealism of the masses turned more 
and more against her and proved no small factor, in con- 
nection with the submarine issue, in throwing the United 
States into the war. 

In measure as American opinion clarified it found a President 
spokesman in the country's president, capable and ready idealist peace 
to translate what stirred the general mind into eloquent P r °g ramm e. 
and moving words. He signalized the entrance of the 
United States into the war with a ringing indictment of 
the autocratic and militarist government of Germany, 
while voicing at the same time his continued good-will 
toward the German people and pledging his country to 
the pursuit of unselfish ends. From time to time, in 
further illustration of his programme, he made additional 
declarations culminating, on January 8, 1918, in a peace 
programme of Fourteen Points, which demanded, among 
other things, the abolition of secret diplomacy, the freedom 
of the seas, the reduction of armaments, the redrawing of 
the map of Europe along national lines, and the creation 
of a League of Nations to maintain peace in the future. 
President Wilson's ringing pronouncements appealed to 
European as well as to American idealism and unified 
liberal opinion the world over as it had not been unified 
before. Slowly a Wilsonian peace began to outline itself 
which not only was directed against Germany and her 
specific evils, but purposed to go to the bottom of things 
by bringing the greedy imperialism of the great powers 
and the ruinous nationalist rivalries of great and small 
alike under the control of the unified peoples of the world. 



5^2 



The War and the Peace 



With refreshed spirits the allies resumed the war on the 
entrance into it of the United States. In 191 7 the Amer- 
ican participation hardly caused a ripple for the' reason 
that America had first to get ready. Besides, the defec- 
tion of Russia from the allied ranks broke the iron ring 
around Germany and greatly relaxed the pressure exer- 
cised upon her. The next campaign, however, the cam- 
paign of 1918, proved decisive. It began in March with 
a supreme effort by the German command to break down 
French and British resistance before American reinforce- 
ments in sufficient number were at hand. For three 
months the Germans battered the allied lines, achieving 
considerable success but failing in their main purpose of 
breaking through. In their hour of greatest need the 
allies unified their command more completely than ever 
before, put the French leader, Marshal Foch, in supreme 
control, and presently, in July, assumed the offensive in 
their turn. The next months brought the most ferocious 
fighting which the war, from first to last unexampled in 
ferocity, had witnessed. Irresistibly the French, British, 
and Americans drove forward, pushing the Germans back, 
until it was clear that they could no longer maintain 
themselves in the invaded districts of Belgium and 
France. 

The outlook for Germany was already somber when 
through occurrences on other fronts it settled into the 
blackness of night. In the late summer the British began 
to apply their final pressure upon the Turks in Syria, 
resulting in the rout of the Turks and the utter break- 
down of Turk resistance. Simultaneously, the allies mov- 
ing north from Saloniki, broke through the Bulgarian 
lines (September, 1918) and obliged Bulgaria, unable to 
get sufficient support from Austria and Germany to steady 
its panicky forces, abjectly to sue for peace. Thus Tur- 



The War and the Peace 583 

key and Bulgaria were broken to bits and eliminated from 
the struggle. Inevitably the Austrian morale was badly 
shaken by these disasters in the Austrian rear, and when, 
in October, the Italians undertook an offensive along the 
Piave, they easily crumpled the Austrian lines, captured 
division after division, and proceeded to strike for Vienna. 
Following defeat in the field, the whole Austro-Hungarian 
political fabric collapsed without delay: the house of 
Hapsburg was deposed, the various nationalities merged 
in the composite state declared their independence, and 
the war ended on this front with an armistice, signed 
November 4, that left the Italian army in complete con- 
trol of the situation. 

These events, taken in connection with their own losing The German 
struggle on the west front, positively obliged the Germans fue^forpeace. 
to treat for peace. In those autumn weeks, while blow 
after blow was being delivered by the allies on every front, 
the shaken government of the kaiser slowly crumbled to 
destruction. The opposition groups of the Reichstag, 
seizing control, opened negotiations with President Wilson, 
but presently had to retire before a rising of the angered 
masses who drove the Reichstag, together with the imperial 
family, from power and set up a republic. A moderate 
group of socialists took over the government. Recogniz- 
ing the hopelessness of stemming the revolutionary tide, 
Emperor William II. left the army and fled to neutral 
Holland (November 10). Meanwhile President Wilson, 
acting as the spokesman of the allies, offered the German 
people his programme of the Fourteen Points as the basis 
of a general peace. This having been accepted, on the 
day following William II.'s flight, on November n, 1918, 
an armistice was signed which required the Germans to 
retire beyond the Rhine and effectually to disarm them- 
selves. By an enormous coordinated effort the resist- 



584 The War and the Peace 

ance of the enemy had been broken and the victory won. 
What would the peace bring? 
The peace con- |? The peace! Plainly it was as important as the war; 
^wholly" 11 ° in fact the war would have been fought in vain if the 
thefivevktori- P eace did not undertake honestly to grapple with the 
ous powers. evils which afflicted the world before the war began and 
which were the real causes of the war. In consequence 
of the immensity of the victory the arrangements for 
peace would be exclusively in the hands of the victors, 
for of the four enemy states Austria-Hungary had disap- 
peared from the map, Turkey and Bulgaria were crushed 
and all but annihilated, and Germany, disarmed and 
passing through the throes of a revolution, might plead 
the protection of the Fourteen Points, but was absolutely 
impotent to enforce consideration of her views. At the 
time when the long and terrible struggle came to an end, 
over a score of states, great and small, were joined to- 
gether as allies or associates against Germany, and as soon 
as Paris had been agreed on as the place of meeting, rep- 
resentatives of the victorious states wended their way 
to the French capital to take part in the great congress 
which was to settle the disturbed affairs of the world. 
Of course the final decisions would be taken by the great 
powers, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the 
United States. They might listen to suggestions from 
the smaller states, but in accordance with immemorial 
usage they would always reserve the last word to them- 
selves. When, in January, 1919, the peace conference 
was called to order, everything therefore depended on the 
temper and programme of the five supreme representa- 
tives of the five victor powers, but also, we should not 
fail to note, on the temper of the respective publics which 
they served, since, no matter what an individual leader 
might think, he could not afford to put himself out of 



The War and the Peace 585 

touch with his people. The people, however, of all the 
victor countries, persisting in the stern and exultant 
frame of mind produced by the war and its triumphant 
ending, were sure to make their influence felt in favor of 
a severe retribution to be visited on the vanquished. 

It is difficult, if not impossible, to present the work of Conflict of the 
the peace conference of Paris in an objective, historical dipiomac^of 
light because we are still too close to see its problems realism and 
and decisions in their true perspective. Suffice it to call 
attention to some of the more outstanding clashes and 
conclusions and, to begin with, to the issue which leaped 
to life the moment the congress opened its doors. During 
the war an idealist programme had sprung into being 
which, under the name of the Fourteen Points, had, as 
already noted, generally won the adherence of the liberal 
elements the world over. What is more, to this platform, 
formulated by President Wilson, the governments them- 
selves had become committed when, in connection with 
the armistice negotiations, they offered it to Germany as 
a basis of discussion. Inevitably, however, the victory, 
immense in its scope and won after a terrific, nerve-racking 
struggle, reinvigorated the nationalist and imperialist 
designs which had never ceased to prompt the diplomacy 
of Europe and which were admittedly a leading factor 
in the war. These designs had been discussed by the re- 
spective foreign offices in the course of the struggle and 
had finally led to secret agreements among the allies which 
enumerated in more or less definite terms the territories 
and economic advantages each power might expect as its 
reward in the event of victory. All the powers, with the 
single exception of the United States, were involved in 
these elaborate transactions, and it was a serious question 
how, if at all, the old-fashioned realist diplomacy which 
they represented was to be brought into harmony with 



5 86 



The War and the Peace 



The secret 
treaties of the 
allies. 



The directive 
influence 
exercised by 
the secret 
treaties. 



the idealist programme represented by President Wilson 
and the Fourteen Points. 

For the better understanding of the nature and the 
gravity of the issue at Paris it is necessary to take a closer 
view of the secret treaties. Signed, sometimes between 
two, sometimes between three and more powers, these 
treaties were very numerous, although their exact number 
was not known and their contents, nay, their very ex- 
istence had been sedulously kept from the general public. 
Gradually, however, in one way or another, enough in- 
formation leaked out to permit the curious to get a reason- 
ably secure picture of the territorial distributions to which 
the victors had become mutually committed. Thus the 
Ottoman empire, long a chief bone of European imperialist 
contention, was partitioned among Great Britain, Russia, 
France, and Italy in such a manner that each power re- 
ceived that portion to which it particularly aspired. 
Further, the German colonial possessions of the Far-East 
were divided between Great Britain and Japan, Japan 
getting the lion's share as heir to Germany in China. 
Again, not only was France to receive Alsace-Lorraine, 
but she was also given definite assurances involving the 
control, if not the possession, of the whole German terri- 
tory on the left bank of the Rhine. And finally, Italy was 
promised, in addition to the coveted and genuinely Italian 
districts of the Trentino and Trieste, a portion of the 
Austro-German Tyrol and such Adriatic areas as Istria 
and northern Dalmatia, where the Italian element was 
numerically inferior to the Slovenes and Croats, two 
South Slav peoples, closely related to the Serbs. 

When the sessions at Paris opened, the three great Eu- 
ropean victors were represented by their prime ministers, 
Lloyd George acting for Great Britain, Clemenceau for 
France, and Orlando for Italy. From outside Europe they 



The War and the Peace 587 

were joined by the Marquis Saionji representing the 
government of Japan and by President Wilson who, setting 
a new precedent in the history of his country, crossed the 
ocean to conduct the case of the United States in person. 
Russia, it should be observed, was not represented. Its 
Bolshevist government, committed to a vast revolutionary 
experiment aiming at nothing less than a new communist 
order of society, had broken off relations with the allies; 
or, it would be as correct to say, in view of the incom- 
patibility manifested by both sides, the allies had broken 
off relations with the Bolshevists. Alarmed at the propa- 
ganda issuing from Moscow and Petrograd and appealing 
to the workers of the world to rise everywhere in revolu- 
tion, the western nations had closed to Russia all the routes 
of trade and intercourse which they commanded and had 
gradually drifted into a relation with the Bolshevist 
government hardly distinguishable from war. Russia, 
therefore, was ignored when the distributions to be effected 
under the secret treaties were brought up for discussion. 
The other interested powers, however, that is, Great 
Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, resolved to insist on 
their bond, although they declared themselves willing to 
make any concession to the idealist policy of the United 
States consistent with the national interest to which each 
one was passionately committed. 

Under these circumstances President Wilson had not President 
been long in Paris before he saw that he would be obliged Jhe^acceSance 
to make concessions to the fierce nationalism which dom- °* The League 
inated the counsels of his associates and which was con- 
secrated by the secret treaties. Undoubtedly these ar- 
rangements greatly disconcerted him, but since they 
represented the solemn mutual pledges of his fellow- 
combatants, he considered it advisable, while trying to 
mitigate some of their worst provisions, to accept them in 



of Nations. 



588 The War and the Peace 

the main and to insist in return on a world union, a League 
of Nations, pledged thenceforward to substitute the 
processes of peace and conciliation for the practices of a 
rapacious imperialism. The conflict among opposed 
opinions at Paris was sharp, but the President won, at 
least so far as the adoption of his plan of a League of 
Nations was concerned. 
The Covenant In April, iqiq, the Covenant of the League was com- 
o t e eague. pi ete( j anc j published to the world. Of course it was 
violently criticized by the conservatives of every country, 
who thought it went too far in the experiment of inter- 
nationalism, no less than by the liberal opinion of the world, 
which contended that it did not go far enough. Its two 
chief features are an Assembly and a Council. The 
Assembly is a general body in which all the states, mem- 
bers of the League, are represented and in which each 
state is equal to every other by reason of its casting, re- 
gardless of size and might, a single vote. The Council, 
a smaller and far more important body, is composed of 
representatives of the five victor powers (the United States, 
Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan) together with 
four representatives of four other members of the League 
chosen by the Assembly, that is, nine in all. The Council 
is, among other matters, empowered to formulate plans 
for the reduction of armaments, to abate the evils which 
have arisen from the private manufacture of munitions, 
to act as a body of conciliators in case of a dispute which 
threatens War, and to formulate the terms under which a 
backward area is to be committed to the control and rule 
of a member-state acting as the agent or mandatory of 
the League. Since the chief purpose of the League is to 
settle contests among nations without recourse to war, 
the Covenant provides for a permanent court of inter- 
national justice. Subject to a new decision of the Council, 



The War and the Peace 589 

the seat of the League is established at Geneva in Switz- 
erland. 

With the Covenant of the League of Nations accepted Germany signs 
by all the delegates, the path was clear for the treaty of verelmes 7 ° f 
peace with Germany. Besides five great powers, over a J une 28 » I0I 9- 
score of smaller states had either engaged in war against 
the Teuton empire or had broken off diplomatic relations 
with it, and the harmonizing of the often conflicting 
claims of this mass of victors was no easy matter. How- 
ever, on May 7, 1919, the completed treaty was pre- 
sented to a German delegation called for that purpose to 
Versailles. They were told peremptorily that no round- 
table discussion was to be allowed but that they might 
communicate in writing their objections to the terms sub- 
mitted. This they accordingly did, passing at last from 
piece-meal criticism to an elaborate set of counter-pro- 
posals. On these having been answered and rejected the 
Germans were told to sign without delay on pain of a 
resumption of the war. To this resolute language the 
government of Berlin yielded and on June 28, in a formal 
session held in the famous palace of Louis XIV., where 
the German empire had been proclaimed in 1871, the 
document which registered its demise received the signa- 
ture of vanquished and victors. By a no less remarkable 
coincidence the day marked the fifth anniversary of the 
historic pistol-shot which killed the Austrian archduke 
and which had ever since been going round the world in 
deafening echoes. 

The treaty of Versailles was a weighty and drastic The territorial 
document of 80,000 words which humbled Germany ut- Germany 
terly. By means of its territorial provisions she was 
curtailed both east and west, losing Alsace-Lorraine to 
France and the bulk of the two provinces of Posen and West 
Prussia to the resuscitated state of Poland. In addition, 



59° The War and the Peace 

certain districts in northern Schleswig and far more ex- 
tensive ones along the eastern confines of Prussia, par- 
ticularly upper Silesia with its invaluable coal-fields, were 
designated as plebiscite areas, where it was left to the 
population to decide by vote whether they wished to 
remain in the German communion. In another important 
German coal region, that of the Saar, a Prussian district 
adjoining Lorraine, the coal mines were given to France 
outright but politically the region was put under the 
League of Nations with the understanding that the in- 
habitants would, after fifteen years, have the privilege 
of determining their ultimate fate by a popular vote. 
Finally, the German colonies in Africa, Asia, and the 
Pacific ocean were distributed among the victors, in some 
cases not as owners in full sovereignty but under the 
mandatory system which reserved a right of supervision 
to the League of Nations. Without doubt it was an 
intelligent proceeding to give the League of Nations this 
power of review since only by means of an active partici- 
pation in the affairs of the world could the League prove 
its vitality and acquire a needed prestige. In pursuance 
of this aim, particularly dear to President Wilson, chief 
sponsor of the Covenant, the execution of the whole 
treaty of Versailles was put more or less in the hands of 
the League. 
The disarma- In the important matter of disarmament Germany 
reparation agreed to surrender to the allies practically the whole of her 
clauses. war equipment — her fleet, her submarines, her cannon, her 

machine guns, her munitions, her military and naval air- 
craft. She further agreed to maintain henceforward a 
navy so small as to be negligible and to support an army 
which shall not exceed 100,000 men. Universal military 
service, with which her history was peculiarly interwoven, 
was to be abolished and the army was to be recruited 



The War and the Peace 591 

solely by voluntary enlistment. In sum, Germany was 
disarmed in the present and made powerless in the future. 
But even more important were the reparations imposed 
on Germany together with the economic consequences 
which they entailed. The beaten nation had, in the ar- 
mistice agreement,, accepted full responsibility "for all 
damage done to the civilian population of the allies and to 
their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by 
sea, and from the air." Under this comprehensive, if 
somewhat indefinite, obligation Germany was saddled 
with a vast burden of payments. She agreed to replace, 
ton for ton, all shipping destroyed by the submarine terror 
or from other causes; she pledged her resources to the re- 
building of the devastated areas of France and Belgium; 
she promised to assemble and hand over without delay 
large quantities of live stock such as milch cows, heifers, 
stallions, mares, and sheep, and annually, for years to 
come, to deliver many million tons of coal. But the 
weightiest of all reparation items was the money indem- 
nity. Because the victors could not agree on the total 
amount to be paid by Germany, they patched up a pro- 
visional arrangement calling for the immediate payment 
of some billions of gold marks but putting off the fixing 
of the definitive sum to May 1, 1921. Finally, a permanent 
committee, called the reparation commission, was estab- 
lished to hold Germany to the exact fulfillment of the terms 
imposed on her. In effect the reparation commission un- 
dertook to manage Germany as a bankrupt estate in the 
interest of the creditors. 

Resolved to get their full rights under the treaty, the The military 
allies did not overlook military coercion. They occupied Causes 11 
with their armed forces the area west of the river Rhine 
together with the three important bridge-heads on the 
east bank at Mainz, Coblenz, and Cologne. The occupa- 



592 



The War and the Peace 



Additional 
labors of the 
peace 
conference. 



The treaty 
with Austria. 



tion was fixed for a term of fifteen years and was to be at 
the expense of the Germans. Moreover, the treaty re- 
served to the victors the right to occupy with their troops 
additional German territory whenever Germany was in 
voluntary default in its obligations. Although there were 
many other articles in the treaty, /each of which cancelled 
some property or treaty right of Germany within or with- 
out her political boundaries, [ enough has been said to 
make clear that from her high-flying venture in im- 
perialism she emerged beaten, diminished, impotent, and 
a beggar. 

With the treaty of Versailles out of the way, President 
Wilson and the leading dignitaries went home, but their 
delegates remained behind at Paris to draw up the docu- 
ments which, besides establishing peace with Austria, 
Hungary, Bulgaria, and'Turkey, should regulate the boun- 
daries and impose certain obligations on the many new 
nations established on the ruins of the ancient empires of 
the Hapsburgs and Romanoffs. The labors of the peace 
conference continued therefore through 1919 and much 
of 1920. 

The treaty with Austria, now a small German re- 
public of about six million inhabitants, of whom two 
million lived in the single city of Vienna, was ready first 
and was duly signed at St. Germain in September, 1919. 
By virtue of it Austria obligated herself to meet a bill for 
reparations so greatly in excess of her assets that she, too, 
had to be taken over as a bankrupt concern by the same 
reparation commission appointed as receiver for Germany 
under the treaty of Versailles. Although she had, as was 
natural enough in view of the triumph throughout the 
world of the nationalist principle, expressed a wish to 
join Germany, the conference, still filled with the fear of 
its late enemy and unwilling to see Germany strengthened 



The War and the Peace 593 

' 

by the addition of new territory, ruled otherwise. For 
the present at least Austria was to be a minor German 
republic dwelling in the shadow of its greater brother. 
Finally, after recognizing the sovereignty and independ- 
ence, within the boundaries drawn by the conference, of 
the states formed wholly or in part from the Hapsburg 
wreck, to wit, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia, and Poland, 
Austria submitted to all cessions of territory required of 
her in favor of these states as well as of Roumania and 
Italy, which, as active members of the victor group, had 
not failed to claim a share in the Hapsburg heritage. 

Next came the treaty with Bulgaria, which, signed at The treaty 
Neuilly, near Paris, in November, 191 9, imposed on the Tnd tteBalkan 
defeated state a large but definite indemnity of something outlook, 
over two billion gold francs and limited the Bulgarian 
army henceforth to 20,000 men. In addition Bulgaria was 
obliged to accede to various losses of territory, the most 
grievous being the province of Thrace together with the 
iEgean seaboard. Macedonia, to which Bulgaria could 
put forth, on purely nationalist grounds, as good a claim 
or better than any of her neighbors, had already been lost 
in the war of 1913 and, though regained in 1915, was 
once again divided between Greece and Serbia. In the 
light of the Bulgar treaty the Balkan peninsula, which had 
been a leading, though by no means the only storm center 
of Europe throughout the nineteenth century, and which 
had set the match to an inflammable continent in 19 14, 
will doubtless persist as a zone of danger. Its pacification 
is highly desirable, and perhaps by means of a loose federa- 
tion of all its states, if it were feasible, the way might be 
cleared for a relaxation of the violent tension and the 
triumph of a better spirit. But with Bulgaria nursing a 
grudge on national and economic grounds and with no one 
of the Balkan states particularly well-disposed to any 



594 



The War and the Peace 



The treaty 
with Hungary. 



The treaty 
with Turkey: 
internationali- 
zation of the 
straits. 



other, the creation of a federative commonwealth is hardly 
to be expected, at least not until much water has run down 
the Danube. 

The treaty with Hungary was greatly delayed, owing 
to the peculiarly violent domestic disturbances in that mid- 
Danubian land which followed its defeat in war. No 
sooner had the Hapsburg dynasty been deposed than, as 
in the case of Russia and Germany, a republic was pro- 
claimed. However, in March, 1919, the communists or 
"Reds," who drew their inspiration from the Russia of 
Lenin, overthrew the middle class, excluded them from 
power, and set up a purely proletarian regime. Not till 
the month of August were the communists overthrown 
by an invasion from Roumania, whereupon a strongly 
conservative group of politicians succeeded in seizing the 
reins at Budapest. Thus, in the year following the ar- 
mistice, control fluctuated violently to and fro. When in 
January, 1920, the allies laid the treaty of Trianon before 
the Hungarian delegates summoned to this end to Paris, 
it was found to be modeled closely on the treaties of Ver- 
sailles and St. Germain. The amount of reparations to 
be paid was left unsettled, the army was reduced to 
35,000 men, and very large slices of territory, prepon- 
derantly inhabited by Roumanians, Slovaks, and Serbs 
were handed over respectively to Roumania, Czecho- 
slovakia, and Jugo-Slavia. By these decisions the new 
republic of Hungary was reduced in territory to one-third 
of the former kingdom and in population to something less 
than nine million inhabitants. 

Owing to the disturbed condition of the disrupted 
Ottoman empire and of the whole Near-East, as well as 
because of differences of opinion among the victors, the 
treaty with Turkey was not ready till the summer of 1920. 
The chief stone of stumbling among the conferees was the 



The War and the Peace 595 

age-old problem of Constantinople and the straits. By a 
secret treaty drawn up in 191 5 this invaluable area had 
been made over to czarist Russia, which therewith came 
into sight of a goal obstinately pursued for generations. 
By going Bolshevist, however, and deserting the allies, 
Russia was accounted to have forfeited the prize. After 
prolonged discussion Great Britain, France, and Italy, the 
powers which controlled the situation, came to a decision. 
They agreed to leave the sultan in Constantinople, though 
in a strictly subordinate position, and to give over the 
supreme direction of the ancient city, as well as of the ad- 
joining territory of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, to an 
international commission. While leaving the details of 
this control to be elaborated later, it was declared that the 
navigation of the straits was to be open in peace and war 
alike to all vessels of every kind without distinction of 
flag. 

By the remaining terms of the Turkish treaty, usually The liquida- 
referred to as the treaty of Sevres, the bulk of the former ottoman 16 
empire was distributed among the victors, though often empire, 
with important qualifications. The great areas of Meso- 
potamia and Syria were reserved respectively for Great 
Britain and France under the mandatory system of the 
League of Nations. In southern Syria an interesting ex- 
periment was inaugurated with the ancient land of Pales- 
tine, for it was proclaimed a Jewish homeland under the 
protection of Great Britain, acting in this case also as 
mandatory of the League. Though Arabia was set up 
as an independent state of Arabs under the rule of the 
sheriff of Mecca, awarded the title king, the new kingdom 
is and can hardly be other than a protectorate of Great 
Britain. Considering all these territorial arrangements, 
it is clear that the struggle conducted for so many genera- 
tions over the inheritance of " the Sick Man " has ended, at 



596 



The War and the Peace 



The treaty, 
after cutting 
off Smyrna and 
Armenia and 
delimiting 
economic 
spheres for the 
victors, con- 
cedes the rest 
of Asia Minor 
to Turkey. 



Persistence of 
numerous areas 
of disturbance: 
Russia. 



least for the present, with the triumph of Great Britain, 
cast, as the result of a successful war, for the role of re- 
siduary legatee. 

So far as the treaty of Sevres goes, the only province 
left to the sultan is Asia Minor, but even this comes to 
him in a much reduced form. Smyrna and its hinterland 
were assigned to Greece, while spheres of interest for ex- 
clusive economic exploitation were reserved to the three 
chief contracting powers, for Italy, France, and Great 
Britain. The treaty also provided for an independent 
Armenia in the mountain area between Asia Minor and 
the Caucasus. Decimated by the repeated and systematic 
massacres of the Turks, the Armenians, a Christian people, 
had won the warm sympathy of Europe which now freed 
them, so far as a paper declaration could do so, from the 
Ottoman yoke. Under these circumstances hardly more 
of Asia Minor was left to Turkey than the dry and un- 
productive central plateau. But even in respect of this 
plateau the sultan was placed so completely under the 
tutelage of Great Britain, France, and Italy that we must 
conclude that the intention of the victors was to strike 
him from the list of independent sovereigns. In a word 
the treaty of Sevres meant the end of the Ottoman em- 
pire. But even if the treaty should become effective — 
which remains of course to be seen — will the end of Turkey 
mean the end of conflict among the many claimants, great 
and small, to the lands which once constituted a great 
state? 

If the leading purpose of the treaties here hurriedly 
sketched was to reestablish peace and bring the war-racked 
nations of Europe back to the pursuit of their normal 
interests in field, office, and factory, that end was only 
very partially accomplished. Almost innumerable were 
the areas where conflict continued in spite of the fiat from 



The War and the Peace 597 

the Paris Olympians. Though this exasperating and 
dangerous persistence of social ferment was due to some 
extent to short-sighted and ill-considered acts on their 
part, it was, without doubt, in the main beyond their 
control and must in fairness be charged to the anarchy 
produced by four savage and demoralizing years of war. 
To convey some idea of the present world situation the 
main regions where disturbances persisted must be here 
briefly indicated. First and foremost comes Russia. Fol- 
lowing the revolution of 19 17 the former empire of the 
czars, embracing the great plain of eastern Europe and 
the still vaster stretches of northern Asia, began to rock 
like a ship in the clutches of a gale under the impact of 
such a revolutionary storm as was without parallel in 
history. The extreme socialists, the Bolsheviki, who 
usurped the rule in November, 191 7, to the battle-cry: all 
power to the proletariat, deliberately set about realizing 
their communistic programme and baulked at no measure, 
however severe, calculated to break down domestic oppo- 
sition. Whenever the native enemies of the Bolshevists, 
whether former monarchists or supporters of a liberal 
bourgeois regime, raised the banner of revolt, the govern- 
ments of France and England secretly or openly came to 
their support. This meant fresh fighting, often on a large 
scale and at many points. Nor was that all. The former 
subject peoples of the czar, who, being non-Russians, 
had seized the opportunity afforded by the revolution to 
proclaim their independence, frantically armed themselves 
ready, if need be, to defend their newly acquired liberty. 
From their frequent alarms, many of them entirely fantas- 
tic, arose a situation which produced war or conditions 
hardly distinguishable from war along a vast border area — 
in the Baltic provinces, in Poland, in the Ukraine, in the 
Caucasus, and in Siberia. 



598 



The War and the Peace 



The uneasy 
new states 
formed from 
the wreck of 
czarist Russia. 



The domestic 
difficulties and 
economic ex- 
haustion of 
Germany and 
her central 
European 
neighbors. 



Let us glance at the outstanding creations of this na- 
tionalist (but also economic) ferment which still continues 
(192 1) and is not likely to subside for many a year. Along 
the shore of the Baltic sea four small peoples, the Letts, 
the Esthonians, the Lithuanians, and the Finns, asserted 
their claims to statehood and have set up governments 
in which the moderate elements have on the whole proved 
themselves stronger than the extremists. On Russia's 
southern border, in the Caucasus, the three new states of 
Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan have taken shape in a 
sufficiently precise form to claim recognition as independ- 
ent entities. Encouraged at first by the entente, they fell 
(192 1) under the influence of Bolshevist Russia and evi- 
dently have many dramatic vicissitudes still before them. 
The picture offered by Siberia's vast expanse is one of 
steady, if not always violent, upheaval. Siberia seems 
to have fallen into numerous self-governing units which 
are not averse to maintaining some sort of a connection 
with Russia, provided their local development is not ham- 
pered thereby. On Siberia's Pacific seaboard imperialist 
Japan creates a special situation, due to her resolve to make 
the most of Russia's present weakness to extend and fortify 
her territorial and economic interests. By its political 
power as well as by the fiery propaganda which it conducts 
in favor of its economic doctrine, Bolshevist Russia ex- 
ercises a spell over large sections of the population of the 
states upon its border and far beyond its border, thus tend- 
ing to keep alive a perpetual social ferment. 

Turning to central Europe, we find this region in much 
the same plight as Russia. In the new German republic 
proclaimed in November, 1918, there have been many revo- 
lutionary outbreaks, promoted sometimes by the group 
of socialists which leans toward Moscow, sometimes by 
the deposed militarists and Junkers. The govermnent, 



The War and the Peace 599 

which tries, wisely enough, to follow a middle course, has 
many enemies and leads a precarious existence. Among 
the many crises which it was obliged to face the one which 
shook it most severely arose over the money indemnity 
due the allies. Adjourned in the treaty of Versailles, 
the indemnity problem spread a cloud of distrust and 
anxiety over the land till at last in May, 192 1, the allies 
communicated their final decision and gained its accep- 
tance with a threat of military occupation of the invaluable 
coal and iron region of the Ruhr. The sum for which 
Germany was liable was fixed at 130,000,000,000 gold 
marks to be paid in annual installments spread over 
many years. Since, whether Germany can meet the 
annual payments, is considered doubtful, the conclusion 
of this business, though making for a desirable clarifica- 
tion, did not immediately contribute to the stabilization of 
Europe's disturbed economic life. The states to the east 
and south of Germany — Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, 
Hungary, and Jugo-Slavia — are the creatures of the Paris 
conference and have yet to lay the foundations of a stable 
government. Some of them, preeminently Austria, which 
hovers perpetually on the brink of starvation, are ex- 
traordinarily weak, and one and all of them suffer from 
disordered finances and an almost complete breakdown of 
production and exchange. 

South-eastward of the states which have taken over the Continued 
succession of the Hapsburg monarchy stretches the BaikanVenin- 6 
Balkan peninsula, the post-war discomfort of which we sula an ^ , 

r ' c successful 

have already noted; and beyond the Balkan peninsula lie resistance of 
in distracting confusion the disjecta membra of the defunct the treaty of 
Ottoman empire. In listing the world's disturbed areas Sevres - 
we may note again that the treaty of Sevres, a masterpiece 
of reckless imperialism, has not brought healing in its 
wings. It met with resistance from the Arabs of Syria 



6oo The War and the Peace 

and Mesopotamia, desirous of controlling their own 
destiny, and from the Turks of Asia Minor, recalcitrant 
to European tutelage; and, in the face of this native 
opposition, it has only in part been carried out. Especially 
the Turks under a vigorous national leader, Mustapha 
Kemal Pasha, have thus far (1921) defeated all attempts 
to bring them to book; nay, by cannily joining hands with 
Bolshevist Russia they have gained a position enabling 
them openly to flout the orders issued from Paris and 
London. This emancipation of large sections of the Near- 
East from allied control is very disconcerting to the 
western powers, desirous of having the Paris treaties ac- 
cepted by everybody and without delay as the official 
basis of a new world-order. 
The continued And even yet we have not completed the roster of the 
invites"inter- na regions threatening immediate trouble. The empire of 
ference fr ?^ China, which in 1910 was swept by the universal demo- 
powers, cratic tide, and which, discarding the Manchu dynasty, 
became a republic, has failed to win peace by virtue of this 
transformation. Grave upheavals, due to faction within 
and to pressure from without, have followed one another 
in unbroken succession. Already the victim of the 
covetousness of the European powers and latterly of her 
Asiatic neighbor, Japan, China must presently either 
organize her strength or face the consequences. What 
they will be the recent instances of Persia, Morocco, and 
the Ottoman empire sufficiently foreshadow. 
Troubles of the Finally, all is not well with the three European victor 
Freiand. empire: states > Great Britain > France, and Italy. Though their 
ills, to be fully understood, call for an analysis which can 
not be attempted here, it is clear that a large part of their 
trouble is a surfeit of imperialism. This appears with 
particular distinctness in the case of the far-flung British 
empire. Certain groups, notably the natives of Ireland, 



The War and the Peace 60 1 

Egypt, and India, have been aroused by the nationalism 
which has made the round of the world and have firmly, 
though with varying intensity of feeling, indicated their 
intention of leaving the British fold. In Ireland the in- 
dependence movement championed by the republican or 
Sinn Fein party has taken on the proportions of a war. 
All three regions constitute centers of unrest which not 
only seriously vex the repose of Great Britain but, what 
is more, issue a challenge to the whole European theory 
and practice of imperialism. 

Compared with the disturbed condition of the other Disturbing 
countries of the world the United States of America looks withdrawafof 
like a veritable haven of rest. Owing to its vast re- * he Un j ted , 

. , ,° States from the 

sources, its efficient economic organization, and its active affairs of Eu- 

and intelligent population it must doubtless figure as the rope ' 
main factor in any programme of world-wide sanitation 
and recovery. And yet from the moment that President 
Wilson set foot on his native shore with the treaty of 
Versailles in his pocket, it has played a very capricious 
role. In that document the President pledged his coun- 
try to the plan of world organization decreed by the 
victors. He reckoned without the senate and, as it 
turned out, without the American people. The criticism 
of the President's commitments, begun in the senate and 
directed chiefly at the League of Nations, was taken up 
by a large section of the press, and in the presidential 
election of November, 1920, led to a sweeping repudia- 
tion of the nation's chief and of his works. The senate's 
failure to enact the treaty of Versailles even perpetuated till 
Jul}, 192 1, the technical state of war between the United 
States and Germany. Above all, the unfriendly attitude 
of senate and people to the Versailles pact has imposed on 
the government a virtual withdrawal from the affairs of 
Europe. This carries with it a weakening of the authority 



602 The War and the Peace 

i /; 

of the European victors and removes a prop, both moral 
and physical, from the settlement they have laid down. In- 
directly it encourages all the forces and agencies which, 
on one score or another, are openly or secretly opposed 
to the allies. 
The pessimist's The purpose of the chapters of this book, dealing with 
present crisis of Europe in the twentieth century, was to show that the 
tion C1Vlhza " war > historically considered, was nothing more or less than 
a crisis of our civilization. Many honest but simple- 
minded people expected that the peace would iron out 
all difficulties and automatically start our civilization, 
refreshed and strengthened, on a new stage of an un- 
broken forward march. Expecting too much, they were 
correspondingly disappointed. Undeniably the crisis of our 
civilization has extended into the period after the war. 
But, calmly viewed, is that continuation good and suffi- 
cient cause for bitterness and blank discouragement? Let 
us state the case for the pessimists who, after all, represent 
a viewpoint which has a considerable currency, though 
rather on the ancient and war-torn continent of Europe 
than in a youthful and buoyant country like the United 
States. These dejected students of world affairs agree 
that the war did indeed wipe out the three autocratic 
monarchies of Germany, Austria, and Russia. Admittedly 
a triumph of democracy, it wrought few other changes. 
As an examination of the annual budgets of the great 
powers shows, militarism and navalism are to-day even 
more rampant than they were before 1914. New 
wars threaten which promise to make the horrors of the 
war just past pale before the wholesale massacres of sol- 
diers and civilians resulting from new and more deadly 
engines of destruction. There is no longer any assurance 
in any quarter that this war was fought to end war. 
Moreover, imperialism, which, we have seen, is inti- 



The War and the Peace 603 

mately tied up with the competition inseparable from the 
capitalistic regime, and which has been chiefly respon- 
sible for the conflicts among the great powers, has not 
undergone the slightest transformation. The treaties of 
Paris are grounded in imperialist conceptions. Again, 
nationalism, that much vaunted nineteenth century prin- 
ciple of organization, has brought a certain disappoint- 
ment in its train. Triumphant through large sections of 
central and eastern Europe and aspiring to achieve an early 
triumph throughout Asia, it has thus far brought about 
the political independence of numerous submerged small 
peoples. But has it made for peace? That is another story, 
and up to the present at least we must regretfullyadmit that 
the new states reared on the wreckage of the Hapsburg 
and Romanoff empires regard each other with a veno- 
mous animosity, auguring ill for the future. The ex- 
pressive phrase has gained currency that the war has 
Balkanized the larger part of Europe. And finally, there 
is the mirage of social justice, eagerly pursued by all the 
various brands of socialists but by the communistic group, 
the Bolshevists, with positively fanatic fury. The tri- 
umph of this group in Russia has greatly encouraged the 
enemies of the capitalistic system everywhere, and if 
Bolshevism, considered as an economic system, has thus 
far proved a failure, the fact remains that the capitalistic 
system has been so severely shaken by the strain of war 
and is obliged to carry such a monstrous burden of debt 
that it no longer enjoys the confidence which it once in- 
spired and which was a subtle moral factor in its nine- 
teenth century triumph. 

But, on the other hand, the optimists are by no means The case of the 
at a loss to marshal arguments to justify their faith in optimist 
the ability of our battered civilization to right itself. 
Though, in view of the incontrovertible facts, it would be 



604 The War and the Peace 

blank stupidity to deny a crisis, has not the civilization 
of Europe weathered many a storm before and has not the 
European man, the homo Europaus, regularly exhibited the 
gifts of mind and heart necessary to wrestle with the evils 
that have successively befallen him in the many centuries 
of his existence? Not obstinacy and blindness, but thought, 
insight, and energy are what are wanted and these can 
be summoned by the individual if he but will. Let him, 
first of all, try to grasp the situation in all its vastness 
and detail. Let him be sure he understands that the 
main evil is the international anarchy which afflicts the 
world in the form of a piratical imperialism, and that it 
must at whatever cost give way to an ideal of peace and 
order. Such other factors in the situation as capitalism, 
socialism, militarism, and nationalism, he must see as 
they are and evalue from the point of view of a future 
world organization. To play his due part he must be not 
only alert and intelligent according to his ability but 
also ready, while fully guarding his independence, to ac- 
cept the leadership of the best minds occupied with the 
problems of the state and of society. In a word, the 
reasonable optimist, stirred by the trumpet call of life, 
invites us not to be discouraged and pusillanimous be- 
cause our civilization is threatened with disaster, but 
rather to lend a hand and salvage what we can and must 
if the historical continuity, on which our whole boasted 
progress rests, is not to be sacrificed by a suicidal leap into 
the dark. The moral and spiritual satisfactions which our 
forefathers, whether in Europe or America, have cherished 
as the highest prize of existence, can not be won by tame 
acquiescence in conditions acknowledged to be evil but 
only through activity. It was a courageous activity un- 
flaggingly continued, as this book has shown, through a 
long chain of generations, which resulted in the civilization 



The War and the Peace 605 

constituting Europe's claim to greatness. If this typically 
occidental activity, ever eager for fresh experience, does 
not fail nor the deep faith in life by which it is fed as from 
an ever-bubbling spring, the new generation, just girding 
its loins for the struggle, may confidently hope that, in- 
stead of viewing the end of civilization and the twilight of 
the gods, it is born to participate in a new and more 
glorious phase of human achievement. 



APPENDIX A 

A BRIEF LIST OF SPECIALLY RECOMMENDED 
BOOKS 

(The following books, which may be purchased at a total 
expense of $25-30, are selected with reference to the needs 
of the student who desires to acquire a small, serviceable 
library of Modern History.) 

1. The Renaissance (1300-1500). 

The Cambridge Modem History. Volume I. The Renais- 
sance. Macmillan. New York. $4.00. The most com- 
prehensive and scientific account of this period in the English 
language. 



2. The Reformation (1500-1648). 

The Cambridge Modem History. Volume II. The Ref- 
ormation. Macmillan. New York. $4.00. Holds the same 
place in its field as the volume on the Renaissance spoken of 
above. Volume III. of this publication, entitled The Wars of 
Religion, carries the narrative through the next stage, but is 
not so indispensable as Volume II. 

Ephraim Emerton. Desiderius Erasmus. Putnam. New 
York. $1.50. A broad and sympathetic interpretation of 
the world of humanism and of its northern leader. 

Gustav Freytag. Martin Luther. Open Court Company. 
Chicago. $0.25. 

Frederic Harrison. William the Silent. Macmillan. New 
York. $0.75. A simple and open-minded biography of the 
great Dutch hero. 

607. 



608 Appendix A 

3. The Absolute Monarchy (1648-1789). 

H. O. Wakeman. The Ascendancy of France in Europe. 
Macmillan. New York. $1.40. This volume traces success- 
fully the organization of the French monarchy and analyzes 
the contributions made by Henry IV., Richelieu, Mazarin, 
and Louis XIV. 



4. Revolution and Democracy (1 789-1906). 

The Cambridge Modem History. Volume VIII. The 
French Revolution. Macmillan. New York. $4.00. Not 
even in French is there a work superior in scholarship, and 
certainly none exists which can compare with it in dispas- 
sionate treatment. 

R. M. Johnston. Napoleon, A Short Biography. Barnes. 
New York. $1.00. Contains all the matter suitable to a 
first view. Students who have a special interest in Napoleon 
should go to Fournier, Rose, and Volume IX. of the Cam- 
bridge Modern History. 

Charles Seignobos. Political History of Europe Since 
1814. Edited by S. M. Macvane. Holt. New York. $3.00. 
Unnecessarily dry and statistical, but containing more impor- 
tant material than any other single volume. 



5. Histories of Single States and Nations. 

E. F. Henderson. A Short History of Germany. 2 vol- 
umes. Macmillan. New York. $4.00. An interesting and 
well-balanced presentation with particular attention directed 
to the Reformation, Frederick the Great, and Bismarck. 

Benjamin Terry. A History of England. Scott, Fores- 
man. Chicago. $1.50. This work lays stress on the con- 
stitutional development without neglecting other factors of 
the national life. 



6. Source Materials. 

J. H. Robinson. Readings in European History. 2 vol- 
umes. Ginn. Boston. $1.50 each. These volumes con- 



Appendix A 609 

tain excellently selected materials, calculated to give the 
student a direct, first-hand impression of a particular period. 
Adams and Stephens. Select Documents Illustrative of 
English Constitutional History. Macmillan. New YorK 
$2.25. An excellent supplement to Terry's History of Eng- 
land, as it gives the most important documents bearing upon 
the growth and organization of the English monarchy. 



APPENDIX B 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE POPES FROM 
THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT DAY 

The Popes are elected by the cardinals in a solemn session 
called conclave. Since Hadrian VI., who was born in the 
Netherlands, all Popes have been Italians. Note that the 
Popes from Nicholas V. (1447) to Paul IV. (1555) form the 
group of Renaissance Popes characterized on pages 33-34 and 
97-98. 



1447. 


Nicholas V. 


1605. 


Paul V. (Borghese) 


1455- 


Calixtus III. (Borgia) 


1621. 


Gregory XV. (Ludo- 


1458. 


Pius II. (Piccolomini) 




visi) 


1464. 


Paul II. 


1623. 


Urban VIII. (Bar- 


1471. 


Sixtus IV. (Rovere) 




berini) 


1484. 


Innocent VIII. 


1644. 


Innocent X. (Pamfili) 


1493- 


Alexander VI. (Bor- 


1655- 


Alexander VII. (Chi- 




gia) 




gi) 


I5°3- 


Pius III. 


1667. 


Clement IX. 


I5°3 


Julius II. (Rovere) 


1670. 


Clement X. 


1513 


Leo X. (Medici) 


1676. 


Innocent XL 


1522 


Hadrian VI. 


1689. 


Alexander VIII. 


i5 2 3 


Clement VII. (Med- 


169 1. 


Innocent XII. 




ici) 


1700. 


Clement XL 


1534 


Paul III. (Farnese) 


1720. 


Innocent XIII. 


i55o 


Julius III. 


1724. 


Benedict XIII. 


1555 


Marcellus II. 


1740. 


Benedict XIV. 


1555 


Paul IV. (Caraffa) 


i758- 


Clement XII. 


1559 


Pius IV. 


1769. 


Clement XIII. 


1566 


Pius V. 


1775- 


Pius VI. 


1572 


Gregory XIII. 


1800. 


Pius VII. 


1585- 


Sixtus V. 


1823. 


Leo XII. 


I 59° 


Urban VII. 


1829. 


Pius VIII. 


1590 


Gregory XIV. 


1831. 


Gregory XVI. 


I 59 I 


Innocent IX. 


1846. 


Pius IX. 


I59 2 


Clement VIII. 


1878. 


Leo XIII. 


1605 


Leo XL 


1903. 


Pius X. 






1914. 


Benedict XV. 



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APPENDIX D 

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A complete list of the books mentioned under the chapter 
references, together with their publishers and prices. 

Adams, G. B. Civilization during the Middle Ages. 1894. 
Scribner. New York. $2.50. 

Adams, G. B. Growth of the French Nation. 1896. Mac- 
millan. New York. $1.25. 

Adams and Stephens. Select Documents Illustrative of 
English Constitutional History. Macmillan. New York. $2.25. 

Airy, O. English Restoration and Louis XIV. (Epochs 
of History.) 1900. Scribner. New York. $1.00. 

Anderson, F. M. Constitutions and other Documents Il- 
lustrative of the History of France (1789-1901)- 1904. H. 
W. Wilson. Minneapolis, Minn. $2.00. 

Andrews, C. M. The Historical Development of Modern 
Europe. 2 vols. 1899. Putnam. New York. $5.00. 

Armstrong, Edward. Lorenzo de' Medici. (Heroes of the 
Nations.) 1896. Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Armstrong, Edward. The Emperor Charles V. 2 vols. 
1902. Macmillan. New York. $7.00. 

Bain, R. N. Charles XII. and the Collapse of the Swedish 
Empire, 1682-1719. (Heroes of the Nations.) 1895. Putnam. 
New York. $1.50. 

Bain, R. N. Scandinavia. A Political History of Denmark, 
Norway, and Sweden. From 1513 to 1900. Cambridge Uni- 
versity Press. Macmillan. New York. $1.90. 

Baird, H. M. History of the Rise of the Huguenots of 
France. 2 vols. 1879. Scribner. New York. $5.00. 

628. 



Appendix D 629 

Baird, H. M. The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre. 2 
vols. 1886. Scribner. New York. $5.00. 

Baird, H. M. The Huguenots and the Revocation of 
the Edict of Nantes. 2 vols. 1895. Scribner. New York. 

$7.5°- 

Beard, C. Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany 
until the Close of the Diet of Worms. 1889. Kegan Paul. 
London. $2.00. 

Beazley, C. R. Prince Henry the Navigator. (Heroes of 
the Nations.) 1895. Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Belloc, Hilaire. The Life of Danton. A Study. Scribner. 
New York. $2.50. 

Belloc, Hilaire. Robespierre. 1901. Scribner. New York. 
$2.00 net. 

Besant, Walter. Gaspard de Coligny. 1901. American 
Book Co. New York. $0.30; 1894. Chatto & Windus. 
London. $0.75. 

Bismarck. Letters to his Wife from the Seat of War, 1870- 
71. Tr. by Harder. 1903. Appleton. New York. $1.00. 

Bismarck, the Man and Statesman; being the Reflections 
and Reminiscences of Otto Prince von Bismarck. 2 vols. 
1899. Harper. New York. $7.50. 

Bourrienne, A. F. Memoirs of Napoleon. Edited by 
Col. R. W. Phipps. 4 vols. Scribner. New York. $5.00. 

Bright, J. F. Maria Theresa. (Foreign Statesmen.) 1897. 
Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Bright, J. F. Joseph II. (Foreign Statesmen.) 1897. Mac- 
millan. New York. $0.75. 

Brown, Horatio R. F. Venice: an Historical Sketch of the 
Republic. 1895. Putnam. New York. $4.50. 

Bryce, James. The Holy Roman Empire. New Edition. 
1904. Macmillan. New York. $1.00. 

Burckhardt, J. The Civilization of the Renaissance. 
Macmillan. New York. $4.00. 

Burke, Ulick R. A History of Spain from the Earliest 
Times to the Death of Ferdinand the Catholic. 2 vols. 1900. 
Longmans, Green. London and New York. $5.00. 



630 Appendix D 

Burton, J. H. History of Scotland. 8 vols. 1898-1901. 
Blackwood. Edinburgh and London. Scribner. New York. 
$12.00 set. 

Busch, Moritz. Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his 
History. 2 vols. 1905. Macmillan. New York. $10.00. 

Cambridge Modern History. Planned by the late Lord 
Acton. Now ready: Vol. I. (The Renaissance); Vol. II. 
(The Reformation); Vol. III. (The Wars of Religion); Vol. 
VIII. (The French Revolution); Vol. IX. (Napoleon). 1902-6. 
Macmillan. New York. $4.00 each. 

Carlyle, Thomas. History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, 
called Frederick the Great. 8 vols. 1900. Scribner. New 
York. $10.00. 

Carlyle, Thomas. Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. 
Edited by Traill. 4 vols. 1900. Scribner. New York. $5.00. 

Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution. Edited by 
Fletcher. 3 vols. 1902. Putnam. New York. $4.50 
set. 

Cartwright, Julia. Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 
1475-97. I 9°3- Dutton. New York. $6.00. 

Cartwright, Julia. Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, 
1474-1539. 2 vols. 1903. Dutton. New York. $7.50. 

Castiglione, Baldassare. The Book of the Courtier. Done 
into English by Sir T. Hoby, anno 1561. 1900. D. Nutt. 
London. $7.50. Also translated by Opdycke. Scribner. 
New York. $10.00. 

Cellini, Benvenuto. Life. Newly translated by J. A 
Symonds. 1903. Scribner. New York. $2.50. 

Cesaresco, Countess E. M. Cavour. (Foreign Statesmen.) 
1898. Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Cheyney, E. P. An Introduction to the Industrial and 
Social History of England. 1901. Macmillan. New York. 

$1.50. 

Colby, C. W. Selections from the Sources of English 
History. 1896. Longmans, Green. New York. $1.50. 

Creighton, Mandell. Cardinal Wolsey. (Twelve English 
Statesmen.) 1888. Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 



Appendix D 631 

Creighton, Mandell. History of the Papacy from the Great 
Schism to the Sack of Rome. 6 vols. 1892. Longmans, 
Green. London and New York. $12.00. 

Dilke, Sir Charles. Problems of Greater Britain. 1890. 
Macmillan. New York. $4.00. 

Douglas, R. K. Europe and the Far East. Cambridge Uni- 
versity Press. Macmillan. New York. $1.90. 

Ely, R. J. Socialism: An examination of its Nature, its 
Strength, and its Weakness. 1894. Crowell. New York. 

$1.50- 

Emerton, Ephraim. Desiderius Erasmus. (Heroes of the 
Nations.) 1900. Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Emerton, Ephraim. Mediaeval Europe (814-1300). 1894. 
Ginn. Boston. $1.50. 

Evelyn, John. Diary and Correspondence. 4 vols. 1992. 
Edited by Bray. Bell. London. $6.00. 

Ewvt, K. Dorothea. Cosimo de' Medici. (Foreign States- 
men:) 1899. Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Firth, C. H. Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans 
in England. (Heroes of the Nations.) 1900. Putnam. New 
York. $1.50. 

Fisher, G. P. The Reformation. New and Revised Edi- 
tion. 1906. Scribner. New York. $2.50. 

Fiske, John. The Discovery of America. 2 vols. 1899. 
Houghton, Mifflin. Boston. $4.00. 

Fletcher, C. R. L. Gustavus Adolphus. (Heroes of the 
Nations.) 1890. Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Founder, August. Napoleon the First. Edited by E. G. 
Bourne. Holt. New York. $2.50. 

Froude, J. A. History of England from the Fall of Wolsey 
to the Death of Elizabeth. 12 vols. 1899. Scribner. New 
York. $18.00. 

Froude, J. A. Life and Letters of Erasmus. 1894. Scrib- 
ner. New York. $1.50. 

Fyffe, C. A. History of Modern Europe (1 792-1878). 
Popular Edition. 1896. Holt. New York. $2.75. 



632 Appendix D 

Gardiner, S. R. A Student's History of England. New 
Edition. 1898. Longmans, Green. London and New York. 
$3.00. 

Gardiner, S. R. Constitutional Documents of the Puritan 
Revolution (1625-60). 1899. Macmillan. New York. $2.00. 

Gardiner, S. R. History of England (1603-42). 10 vols. 
1894-96. Longmans, Green. New York. $20.00. 

Gardiner, S. R. History of the Civil War (1642-49). 4 
vols. 1898-1901. Longmans, Green. New York. $8.00. 

Gardiner, S. R. History of the Commonwealth and the 
Protectorate (1649-56). 4 vols. 1903. Longmans, Green. 
New York. $2.00 each. 

Gardiner, S. R. The Puritan Revolution, 1603-60. (Epochs 
of Modern History.) Scribner. New York. $1.00. 

Gardiner, S. R. The Thirty Years' War, 1618-48. 
(Epochs of Modern History.) 1903. Scribner. New York. 
$1.00. 

Garibaldi, Giuseppe. Autobiography. 3 vols. Translated 
by Werner. W. Smith. London. $8.00 set. 

Gee and Hardy. Documents Illustrative of English Church 
History. 1896. Macmillan. New York. $2.00. 

Gindely, Anton. History of the Thirty Years' War. 2 vols. 
1898. Putnam. New York. $3.50. 

Green, J. R. A Short History of the English People. Re- 
vised Edition. American Book Co. New York. $1.20. 

Harrison, Frederic. William the Silent. (Foreign States- 
men.) 1897. Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Hassall, Arthur. Louis XIV. (Heroes of the Nations.) 
1895. Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Hassall, Arthur. Mazarin. (Foreign Statesmen.) 1903. 
Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Hassall, Arthur. The Balance of Power. 1715-89. 
(Periods of European History.) 1898. Macmillan. New 
York. $1.60. 

Hazen, Chas. Downer. Contemporary American Opinion 
of the French Revolution. 1897. Johns Hopkins Press. 
Baltimore. $2.00. 



Appendix D 633 

Headlam, J. W. Bismarck. (Heroes of the Nations.) 1899. 
Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Henderson, E. F. A Short History of Germany. 2 vols. 
1902. Macmillan. New York. $4.00. 

Hoist, H. E. von. The French Revolution Tested by 
Mirabeau's Career. 2 vols. 1894. Callaghan. Chicago. $3.50. 

Hughes, T. A. Loyola and the Educational System of the 
Jesuits. (Great Educators.) 1892. Scribner. New York. 
$1.00 net. 

Hume, M. A. S. Philip II. (Foreign Statesmen.) 1897. 
Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Hume, M. A. S. Spain (1479-1788). 1898. Macmillan. 
New York. $1.50. 

Hume, M. A. S. Modern Spain (1 788-1898). 1900. 
Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Jackson, S. M. Huldreich Zwingli (1484-1531). (Heroes 
of the Nations.) 1901. Putnam. New York. $2.00. 

Janssen, Johannes. History of the German People at the 
Close of the Middle Ages (goes to 1580). Translated from 
the German. 8 vols. Kegan Paul. London. $19.00. 

Jessopp, Augustus. The Coming of the Friars. 1901. 
T. Fisher Unwin. London. $1.25. 

Johnson, A. H. Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 1494- 
1598. (Periods of European History.) 1898. Macmillan. 
New York. $1.75. 

Johnston, R. M. Napoleon: A Short Biography. 1904. 
Barnes. New York. $1.00. 

Kennan, George. Siberia and the Exile System. 2 vols. 
1894. Century Co. New York. $6.00. 

King, Bolton. A History of Italian Unity (1814-71). 2 
vols. 1899. J. Nisbet. London. Scribner. New York. $7.50. 

King and Okey. Italy To-day. 1901. J. Nisbet. Lon- 
don. Scribner. New York. $3.00. 

Kitchin, G. W. History of France. (Closes with 1792.) 
3 vols. 1881-85. Clarendon Press. Oxford. $7.80. 

Klaczko, Julian. Rome and the Renaissance. Translated 
by J. Dennie. 1903. Putnam. New York. $3.50. 



634 Appendix D 

Kostlin, Julius. Life of Luther. 1903. Scribner. New 
York. $2.50. 

Kovalevsky, M. Russian Political Institutions. 1902. 
University of Chicago Press. Chicago. $1.50. 

Lea, H. C. A History of Auricular Confession and In- 
dulgences in the Latin Church. 3 vols. 1896. Lea Brothers. 
Philadelphia. $9.00. 

Lea, H. C. A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. 
3 vols. 1887-88. Harper. New York. $9.00. 

Lea, H. C. The Moriscos of Spain, their Conversion and 
Expulsion. 1901. Lea Brothers. Philadelphia. $2.25. 

Lea, H. C. A History of the Inquisition of Spain. 4 vols. 
1906. Macmillan. New York. $2.50 each. 

Lecky, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth 
Century. 7 vols. 1S92-93. Appleton. New York. $7.00. 

Legg, L. G. W. Select Documents Illustrative of the History 
of the French Revolution. 2 vols. 1905. Clarendon Press. 
Oxford. $4.00. 

Lodge, Richard. Richelieu. (Foreign Statesmen.) 1896. 
Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Lodge, R. Close of the Middle Ages (1273-1494). 1901. 
(Periods of European History.) Macmillan. New York. 
$1.75. 

Longman, F. W. Frederick the Great. (Epochs of Mod- 
ern History.) 1898. Scribner. New York. $1.00. 

Lowe, Charles. Prince Bismarck: An Historical Biography. 
2 vols. 1899. Cassell. London and New York. $6.00. 

Lowell, A. L. Governments and Parties in Continental 
Europe. 2 vols. 1900. Houghton, Mifflin. Boston. 
$5.00. 

Lowell, E. J. The Eve of the French Revolution. 1900. 
Houghton, Mifflin. $2.00. 

Luther, Martin. Table Talk. Translated by W. Hazlitt. 
1902. Macmillan. New York. Bell. London. $1.00. 

Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Translated from the 
Italian by N. H. Thomson. Second Edition. 1897. Clar- 
endon Press. Oxford. $1.10. 



Appendix D 635 

Mahan, A. T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History 
(1660-1783). 1898. Little, Brown. Boston. $4.00. 

Mahan, A. T. The Influence of Sea Power upon the French 
Revolution and Empire (1793-1812). 2 vols. 1898. Little, 
Brown. Boston. $6.00. 

Malleson, G. B. Dupleix. (Rulers of India.) $0.60. Also 
Clive. (Rulers of India.) 1895. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 

Malleson, G. B. The Indian Mutiny of 1857. 1901. 
Scribner. New York. $1.75. 

Marx, Karl. Capital. 1891. Swan Sonnenschein. Lon- 
don. $2.00. 

Matthews, Shailer. The French Revolution: A Sketch. 
1901. Longmans, Green. New York. $1.25. 

May, Thomas Erskine. The Constitutional History of 
England since the Accession of George the Third (1 760-1871). 
3 vols. 1896. Longmans, Green. New York. $4.50. 

Mazade, Charles de. The Life of Count Cavour. 1877. 
Chapman & Hall. London. $4.00. 

McCarthy, Justin H. History of Our Own Times. 3 vols. 
1901. Harper. New York. Vols. I-II, $2.50. Vol. III., 
$1.25. 

McCarthy, Justin H. Ireland since the Union (1798- 
1886). 1887. Belford Clarke. Chicago and New York. 
$4.00. 

McCrackan, W. D. The Rise of the Swiss Republic. 
1901. Holt. New York. $1.50. 

Millard, T. F. The New Far East. 1906. Scribner. 
New York. $1.50. 

Milyoukov, Paul. Russia and its Crisis. 1905. The 
University of Chicago Press. $3.00. 

More, Sir Thomas. Utopia. Cassell's Library. $0.10. 
Camelot Series. $0.50. 

Morfill, W. R. History of Russia from the Birth of Peter 
the Great to Nicholas II. 1902. James Pott. New York. 
$1.70. 

Morley, John. Diderot and the Encyclopaedists. 2 vols. 
1905. Macmillan. New York. $3.00. 



636 Appendix D 

Morley, John. Life of William Ewart Gladstone. 3 vols. 
1903. Macmillan. New York. $10.50. 

Morley, John. Oliver Cromwell. 1900. Century. New 
York. $3.50. 

Morley, John. Rousseau. 2 vols. Macmillan. New York- 
$3.00. 

Morley, John. Voltaire. 1905. Macmillan. New York. 
$1.50. 

Motley, J. L. Rise of the Dutch Republic. 3 vols. 1883. 
Harper. New York. $6.00. 

Motley, J. L. History of the United Netherlands from the 
Death of William the Silent to 1609. 4 vols. 1895. Harper. 
New York. $8.00. 

Motley, J. L. Life and Death of John of Barneveld. 2 
vols. 1902. Harper. New York. $4.00. 

Napoleon. Letters to Josephine, 1 796-1812. Notes by H. 
F. Hall. 1902. Dutton. New York. $3.00. 

Old South Leaflets. 6 vols. (150 leaflets). 1896-1902. 
Old South Meeting House. Boston. $1.50 each. 

Parkman, Francis. Half Century of Conflict. 2 vols. 
1903. Little, Brown. Boston. Popular Edition. $3.00. 

Parkman, Francis. The Jesuits in North America in the 
Seventeenth Century. 1902. Little, Brown. Boston. $2.00. 

Parkman, Francis. Montcalm and Wolfe. 2 vols. 1903. 
Little, Brown. Boston. $4.00. 

Pastor, Ludwig. The History of the Popes (1305-15 13). 
Translated from the German. 1891-94. 6 vols. Kegan 
Paul. London. $16.00. 

Payne, E. J. History of European Colonies. 1889. Mac 
millan. New York. $1.10. 

Pepys, Samuel. Diary and Correspondence. Edited by 
Lord Braybrooke. 4 vols. Bohn's Hist. Library. 1889-97. 
Macmillan. New York. $6.00. 

Perkins, J. B. France under Louis XV. 2 vols. 1897. 
Houghton, Mifflin. Boston. $4.00. 

Perkins, J. B. France under Mazarin. 2 vols. 1886 
Putnam. New York. $4.00. 



Appendix D 637 

Perkins, J. B. Richelieu. (Heroes of the Nations.) 1900. 
Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Phillips, W. A. Modern Europe (1815-99). (Periods of 
European History.) 1901. Macmillan. New York. $1.60. 

Phillips, W. A. War of Greek Independence (1821-33). 
1897. Scribner. New York. $1.50. 

Prothero, G. W. Statutes and Constitutional Documents 
(1559-1625). 1899. Macmillan. New York. $2.00. 

Putnam, Ruth. William the Silent. 2 vols. 1895. Put- 
nam. New York. $3.75. 

Rambaud, A. N. History of Russia. 2 vols. 1904. A. L. 
Burt. New York. $4.00. 

Remusat, Madame de. Memoirs. 3 vols. 1880. Apple- 
ton. New York. $2.00 each. 

Robinson, J. H. An Introduction to the History of Western 
Europe. 1903. Ginn. Boston. $1.60. 

Robinson, J. H. Readings in European History. 2 vols. 
1904. Ginn. Boston. $1.50 each. 

Robinson, J. H., and Rolfe, H. W. Petrarch, the first 
Modern Scholar and Man of Letters. 1898. Putnam. New 
York. $2.00. 

Rose, J. H. Life of Napoleon I. 2 vols. 1905. Mac- 
millan. New York. $4.00. 

Rose, J. H. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 
1789-1815. Cambridge University Press. 1905. Macmillan, 
New York. $1.25. 

Rosebery, Earl of. Napoleon: The Last Phase. 1900. 
Harper. New York. $3.00. 

Saint Simon, Duke of. Memoirs. 4 vols. 1901. Pott. 
New York. $6.00. 

Say, Leon. Turgot. Translated by M. B. Anderson. 
1888. McClurg. Chicago. $1.00. 

Seebohm, Frederic. The Oxford Reformers. 1896. Long- 
mans, Green. London and New York. $4.00 net. 

Seeley, J. R. Life and Times of Stein, or Germany and 
Prussia in the Napoleonic Age. 3 vols. 1878. Cambridge 
University Press. $5.00. 



638 Appendix D 

Seeley, J. R. Short History of Napoleon the First. 1901. 
Little, Brown. Boston. $1.50. 

Seignobos, Charles. Political History of Europe since 1814. 
Edited by S. M. Macvane. 1899. Holt. New York. $3.00. 

SevignS, Madame de. Selected Letters. Edited by M. B. 
Anderson. McClurg. Chicago. $1.00. 

Sloane, W. M. Napoleon Bonaparte. 4 vols. 1902. 
Century Co. New York. $18.00 net. 

Smith, Munroe. Bismarck and German Unity. 1898. 
Macmillan. New York. $1.00. 

Stephens, H. Morse. Portugal. (Story of the Nations.) 
Putnam. New York. $1.50. 

Stephens, H. Morse. A History of the French Revolution. 
3 vols. 1902. Scribner. New York. $2.50 each. 

Stephens, H. Morse. Revolutionary Europe. 1 789-1815. 
(Periods of European History.) 1905. Macmillan. New 
York. $1.40. 

Stillman, W. J. Union of Italy (1815-95). 1905. Mac- 
millan. New York. $1.60. 

Sybel, H. von. Founding of the German Empire by 
William I. 7 vols. 1890-98. Crowell. New York. 
$14.00. 

Sybel, H. von. History of the French Revolution. 4 vols. 
1867-69. Translated by Walter C. Perry. J. Murray. 
London. $8.00. 

Symonds, J. A. Renaissance in Italy. 7 vols. 1881-88. 
Scribner. New York. $2.00 each. 

Symonds, J. A. Short History of the Renaissance in Italy. 
1894. Holt. New York. $1.75. 

Taine, H. A. The Ancient Regime. 1896. Holt. New 
York. $2.50. 

Taine, H. A. The French Revolution. 3 vols. 1878-85. 
Holt. New York. $7.50. 

Taine, H. A. The Modern Regime. 2 vols. 1890-94. 
Holt. New York. $5.00. 

Terry, Benjamin. A History of England. 1901. Scott, 
Foresman. Chicago. $1.5®. 



Appendix D 639 

Thatcher and McNeal. A Source Book for Mediaeval His- 
tory. 1905. Scribner. New York. $1.85 net. 

Thayer, W. R. Dawn of Italian Independence (1814- 
49). 1893. Houghton, Mifflin. Boston. $4.00. 

Tocqueville, Alexis de. State of Society in France before 
the Revolution of 1789. Translated by Henry Reeve. 1856. 
Murray. London. 

Traill, H. D., and Mann, J. S., Ed. Social England. 6 vols. 
1901-3. Putnam. New York. $30.00. 

Traill, H. D. William III. 1905. Macmillan. New 
\Tork. $0.75. 

Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of 
European History. Published by the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. 6 vols. Longmans, Green. New York. $1.25 each. 

Tuttle, Herbert. History of Prussia. 4 vols. 1884-96. 
Houghton, Mifflin. Boston. $8.25. 

Van Dyke, Paul. The Age of the Renaissance. (Epochs of 
Church History.) 1897. The Christian Literature Co. New 
York. Scribner. New York. $2.00 net. 

Vasaxi, Giorgio. Lives of the Painters, etc. 5 vols. Bohn 
Library. Also 4 vols. 1901. Scribner. New York. $8.00. 

Villari, Pasquale. Life and Times of Machiavelli. Trans- 
lated by Linda Villari. 1898. (Popular Edition.) Scribner. 
New York. $2.00 net. 

Villari, Pasquale. Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola. 
Translated by Linda Villari. 1899. Scribner. New York. 
%2. 00 net. 

"Wa.ce, H., and Buckheim, C. A. Luther's Primary Works. 
Hodder and Stoughton. London. Lutheran Publication 
Society. Philadelphia. $1.50. 

Wakeman, H. O. Ascendency of France in Europe (1598- 
1715). (Periods of European History.) 1897. Macmillan. 
New York. $1.40. 

Waliszewski, K. Peter the Great. 1900. Appleton. New 
York. $2.00, 

Wallace, A. R. The Wonderful Century. Dodd, Mead. 
New York. $2.50. 



640 Appendix D 

Whitcomb, Merrick. Literary Source Book of the Italian 
Renaissance. 1904. University of Pennsylvania. Philadel- 
phia. $1.50. Also Literary Source Book of the German 
Renaissance. 

Whitman, Sidney. Imperial Germany: A Critical Study of 
Fact and Character. 1901. Chautauqua Press. $0.75. 

Whitman, Sidney. Personal Reminiscences of Prince Bis 
marck. 1903. Appleton. New York. $1.60. 

Whitman, Sidney. The Realm of the Hapsburgs. 1893. 
W. Heinemann. London. $1.50. 

Wilhelmine, Margravine of Baireuth. Memoirs. Harper. 
New York. $1.25. 

Willert, P. F. Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots in 
France. (Heroes of the Nations.) 1893. Putnam. New York. 
$1.50. 

Willert, P. F. Mirabeau. (Foreign Statesmen.) 1905. 
Macmillan. New York. $0.75. 

Young, Arthur. Travels in France. (Bohn's Library.) 
1890. Macmillan. New York. $1.00. 

Zwingli, Huldreich. Selections from the Writings of. 
Edited by S. M. Jackson. 1901. Longmans, Green. New 
York. $1.25. 



IND£2 



INDEX 



Abukir Bay, battle of, 387 

Academy of France, 202 

Act of Union with Ireland (English), 

340, 486 
Adrianople, Treaty of, 426 
Africa, 79, 114, 487-89, 504, 507-8, 

520, 526; partition of, 542-43 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of (1668), 

280; (1748), 31S1 333, 335 
Ajaccio, 385 

Albania (Albanians), 493, 496, 561 
Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg, 490 
Albigenses, 54, 60, 101 
Alexander I. of Russia, 398, 404-6, 

418-19, 491-92 
Alexander II. of Russia, 492, 496, 

500-1 
Alexander III. of Russia, 498, 501 
Alexander VI., Pope, 22, 34 
Alexander, prince of Battenberg 

497-98 
Alfonso XII. of Spain, 518 [550 

Algiers, as stepping-stone to Tunis, 
Algiers, 508 
Alsace, 224, 282, 476; acquired by 

Germany, 477 [589 

Alsace-Lorraine, 549; ceded to France, 
Alva, duke of, 164-68 
America, 11-15, 33 7~38, 480 
American colonies, 339, 480 
Amiens, Peace of, 390, 394, 399 
Amsterdam, 176, 280, 281 
Ancien regime, 352, 361 
Angelo, Michael, 18, 22 
Angouleme, duke of, 422 
Annam, 507 
Anne of Austria, queen of France, 

274 



Anne of England, 327-30 
Anthony, king of Navarre, 186, 188 

189 
Antwerp, 169, 172 
Areola, battle of, 384 
Armada, Spanish, 114, 153-54 
"Armed peace," 538 
Armenia (Armenians), 498, 596 
Army, in Thirty Years' War, 213-14; 

Grand, of Napoleon, 405-6 
Arras, Union of, 170 
Artois, 76, 170, 276; count of, 357, 

429 
Assembly, Federal, of Switzerland, 

5 2 3 
Assembly, in French Revolution, 

354-64; later, 442-44, 458-59. 

478-79, 505 
Asia, European occupation of, 542- 

43 

Assignats, 361, 386 

Auerstadt, batt'e of, 397 

Augsburg, Diet of (1530), 77; con- 
fession of, 77; Peace of (1555), 82- 
83, 203, 224; in Thirty Years' 
War, 226 

Augustenburg, duke of, proclaimed 
in Schleswig-Holstein, 470 

August the Strong, king of Poland 
(also Elector of Saxony), 295-97, 
298 

Austerlitz, 395 

Australia, 487 

Austria, acquires Bosnia and Herze- 
govina,497, 515; allied with France, 
3 I 7~ 1 9, 337. 404; at the Congress 
of Vienna, 415-19; Austrian Suc- 
cession War, 313-15, 333, 335, 336; 



643 



644 



Index 



Bohemia and, 206-10,312-15,318, 
449, 453, 472; dual empire of, 
512-15; France and, rivalry with, 
197, 199, 201, 207, 212, 222, 284, 

287, 313-15, 3i7, 333, 335-3 6 ; 
Germany and, 204-25, 313-15, 
317-18, 322, 345-57, 368-78; 
Hungary and, 449, 45 2 ~54, 5 I2 - X 5; 
Italy and, 415, 417, 421, 433, 462- 
63, 466, 471-72; opposes French 
Revolution and Napoleon, 365-66, 
3 6 9, 37i> 3 8l » 3 8 3-85, 387-9°, 
395~9 6 , 399, 4°3~4, 4°7~9; Poland 
and, 300, 321, 381, 403; policy of 
intervention, 419, 421, 433, 455-5°; 
races in, 448-49, 453. 5 12 , 5 1 45 
revolution (1848), 449-59; rivalry 
with Prussia, 308, 312-22, 415, 
455-57, 4°°, 471-72; Russia and, 
317, 318, 511, 515; Seven Years' 
War and, 317-21, 337; Triple Al- 
liance, 504, 507, 511, 515 
Austrian Succession- War, 313-15, 

333, 335 
Austria-Hungary, 512-15 
Auto-da-fe, 40 
Azores, 520 
Azov, 292, 293, 297 

Bacon, Francis, 156; impeachment of, 

237 
Badeu, 396, 417-18, 434 
Balance of power, 327, 398, 409, 416, 
426, 432-33, 494, 495, 49°, 499, 
550-52, 556, 561; see Congress of 
Vienna, Congress of Berlin, etc. 
Balkans, 493-99 
Barebone's Parliament, 257 
Barons, feudal, see Nobles 
Barneveldt, John of, 175 
Barras, French Director, 382-83 
Basel, Peace of, 381, 396 
Bastille, destruction of, 357 
Batavian Republic, 381, 385, 394 
Bavaria, in Thirty Years' War, 205, 
209-n, 219, 225; Napoleon and, 
395-96; Austrian Succession War, 



313-14; Austrian attempt to ab- 
sorb, 322; kingdom of, 395-96, 
417; acquires Salzburg, 403; revo- 
lution, 1830, 434 
Bayonne, Napoleon at, 401-2 
Bazaine, Marshal, surrenders Metz 

to Prussians, 477 
"Beggars" of Netherlands, 164, 167 
Belgium, 157, 159, 170, 525-26; see 
Netherlands; annexed to France, 
381; ceded by Austria to France, 
384; with Holland merged into 
kingdom of the Netherlands, 516, 
524; kingdom of, 432-33, 5 2 4, 5 2 5~ 
26; neutrality violated, 566 

Berg. 399 

Berlin and Bagdad line, 560; Congress 
of (1878), 49 6 -97, 5°7, 5*5! De- 
crees of, 400; Napoleon occupies, 
397; revolution (1848), 446, 454 
Bernadotte, Marshal, 528 
Berri, duke of, 429; duchess of, 439 
Bill of Rights, English, 272, 323, 327 
Bishops' War, First, 247; Second, 248 
Bismarck, Prince, Prime Minister of 
Prussia, 469-78; contest with 
Prussian Parliament, 469-70; 
Schleswig-Holstein affair, 470-71; 
War with Austria, 471-72; organ- 
izes North German Confedera- 
tion, 472-73; Franco-Prussian War 
473-77 ; achieves unity of Germany, 
477-78; Chancellor of the Empire, 
508-11; foreign policy after 1871, 
548-50 
Blenheim, battle of, 286 [Judge 

Bloody Assizes, 270; see Jeffreys, 
Bliicher, Marshal, 411 
Boers, 488-89 

Bohemia (and Austria), 313-14, 472; 
Hussite revolt in, 206; Reforma- 
tion in, 206; Thirty Years' War, 
207, 208-10; Austrian Succession 
War, 313-14; Seven Years' War, 
318 
Boleyn, Anne, 126, 129, 132 
Bonaparte, House of, 443 



Index 



645 



Bonaparte, Jerome, kingdom of 
Westphalia given, 398 

Bonaparte, Joseph, Naples given, 
399; king of Spain, 402, 422 

Bonaparte, Louis, made king of 
Holland, 394; abdication, 404-5 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, see Napoleon I. 

Bora, Catharine von, 72 

Borgia, Caesar, 22, 34 

Boroughs in England, 482-84 

Bosnia, 497, 515, 557, 560-61, 563 

Bothwell, earl of, 151 

Boulanger, General, 506 

Boulogne, Napoleon's naval arma- 
ment at, 395 

Bourbon, duke of, 76 

Bourbon, House of, 186, 193, 194, 
207, 212, 222, 285, 327, 375, 417, 
420, 428, 431, 439, 465, 475, 505, 
516-18; rivalry with House of 
Hapsburg, 179, 207, 212, 222, 284, 

Bourgeoisie, 430, 438-40; ruling part 
in modern civilization, 538-41 

Boyne, battle of the, 325, 326 

Brabant, 157, 159 

Braganza, House of, 116, 519-20 

Brandenburg (Prussia), 302 — 9; 
Thirty Years' War, 218-19, 225— 
26, 305; beginnings of, 302-3; 
Spanish Succession War, 309 

Brazil, 401, 420, 519-20 

Breitenfeld, battle of, 219 

Breslau, Peace of, 314 

Bright, John, 485 

Brill, capture of, 167-68 

British Empire, expansion of, 487-90 

Brunswick, duke of, 397; proclama- 
tion of, 366; retreat at Valmy, 369 

Brussels, 158, 161, 165, 432 

Buckingham, duke of, 238-39, 241- 

43 
Bulgaria, 493, 497-98, 499; in Balkan 

wars, 561-62; in world-war, 574, 58a 
Bund, 418, 433-34, 435, 446, 447, 

456, 47°, 473 
Bundesrath, 473 



Bunyan, John, 273 

Burgundy, duchy of, 35, 76, 77, 79, 

iS7, 158 
Bute, Lord, 338 
Byron, Lord, 425 

Cabinet government in England, 331, 

480 
Cabot, John, 12, 15, 43 
Calais, 122, 140, 162, 184 
Calendar, French Revolutionary, 379- 

80, note 
Calmar, Union of (T397), 86 
Calvinism, 94-97, 203-4, 225, 240 
Calvin, John, 91-97, 182; in Geneva, 

92-94; his church, 94-96; theology 
' of, 96-97 

Cambray, Ladies' Peace of (1529), 77 
Campeggio, papal legate, 127 
Campo Formio, Peace of, 384 
Canada, 338, 487 
Canning, George, 422-23, 426, 481- 

82 
Carlists, party in Spain, 517 
Carlos, Don, Spanish pretender, 517 
Carlsbad decrees, 434 
Carnot, organizes French army of 

defence, 373, 381; member of the 

Directory, 383 
Castlereagh, English minister, 481 
Cateau-Cambresis, Peace of, 113, 

162, 183, 184 
Catherine de' Medici, 187, 188, 190-92 
Catherine of Aragon, 125-29 
Catherine II. of Russia, 299-301, 

320 
Catholic League in France, 193, 194, 

i95, *97 
Catholic League, of Germany, 205, 

209, 210, 212, 213, 215, 218 
Catholic Reformation, 105; see 

Counter Reformation 
Catholics, in England, 266-67, 269, 

482 
Catholicism, 82, 86, 9T, 102, 144, 146, 

153, 203, 20S, 225, 227, 235, 265, 

267, 392, 451 



646 



Index 



Cavalier Parliament, 263-64, 268 

Cavaliers, 250, 273 

Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont, 

462-66 
Celts, 334, 432 
Centre, clerical party in Germany, 

Cervantes, 118 

Chamber of Deputies, French, 428. 

43°. 43 1. 44o, 44i, 5°5 

Chamber of Peers, French, 428 

Chambord, count of, 505 

Charlemagne, 25, 412 

Charles Albert, king of Sardinia, 
449-50; defeated at Novara, 450 

Charles, Archduke (Austrian general), 
384 

Charles Edward Stuart ("Prince 
Charlie"), 333~34 

Charles V., Emperor of Germany 
(Charles I., king of Spain), 28; 
rivalry with Francis I., 31, 71, 76, 
179; extent of dominions, 28, 
37-38, 71; elected emperor, 28, 70; 
Reformation and, 70-72, 77-78, 
79-84, 103; French-Spanish wars, 
3 1 ) 3°> 75—77, 79, 162; Protestant 
wars, 80-81; abdicates crown, 83, 
161 

Charles VI., Emperor (Archduke 
Charles of Austria), 286, 287, 312, 

332 
Charles VII., Emperor (Charles of 

Bavaria), 313-15 
Charles I. of England, 199, 239-55; 

domestic troubles, 240-41, 242-44, 

247-49; foreign disasters, 242; and 

Scotland, 247-48, 252-54; appeal 

to arms, 250-55 
Charles II. of England, 261-68, 280, 

281; character of, 261-62; foreign 

policy, 265—67 
Charles VIII. of France, invades 

Italy (1494), 3°, 3 6 > 3 8 > x 7 8 
Charles IX. of France, 188, 190-92 
Charles X. of France, 429-31 
Charles I. of Roumania, 497 



Charles I. of Spain (Charles V., 
emperor), rules for personal ends, 
107-8; drains resources of Spain, 
109 

Charles II. of Spain, 284, 327 

Charles IV. of Spain, 401 

Charles XII. of Sweden, 294-98; see 
Peter I., the Great, of Russia 

Charles, prince of Hohenzollern- 
Sigmaringen, 495; see Charles I. 
of Roumania 

Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, 28, 

iS7 
China, spoliation of, 600 
Christian IV. of Denmark, 212 
Christian IX. of Denmark, 470-71; 

527 

Christian, prince of Glucksburg, 456; 
see Christian IX. of Denmark 

Christina, queen of Sweden, 221, 294 

Church, mediceval, 44-55; organiza- 
tion and power, 45-50; clergy, 46- 
47, 53, sacraments, 51-52; heresy, 
53-54, 102; reform in, 97-98, 105; 
Roman, 67, 97, ioi, 104, 193, 204, 
205, 289; feudalism in, 46-47, 
346-48; States of, see Papal States 

Church of England (or Anglican 
Church), establishment, 119-56, 
144; Act of Supremacy, 129, 138, 
144; Six Articles, 132; Prayer Book, 
134, 135, x 43, x 44, 247, 256, 264; 
Forty-two Articles of Religion, 135; 
Act of Uniformity, 143, 144, 264; 
Thirty-nine Articlesof Religion, 1 44 

Cisalpine Republic, 384-85, 394 

Cities or towns, mediaeval, struggle 
for political freedom, 8, 23-24; in 
Italy, 7-9, 18; in Spain, 38; in 
Germany, 9 

Clement VII., Pope, 127 

Clergy, organization and power, 45- 
50; constitute first estate of feudal 
society, 47, 346; corruption, 53, 64, 
98, 347-48; property confiscated in 
France, 361; in France, 506-7; in 
Germany, 509 



Index 



647 



Cleves acquired by Brandenburg, 304 

Clive, Lord, 338 

Cobden, Richard, 485 

Cochin China, see China 

Code Napoleon, 393 

Colbert, 278 

Colet. John, 120 

Coligny, Gaspard de, 190-92 

Colloden Moor, battle of, 334 

Committee of Public Safety, 372-73, 
376, 378, 380 

Commons, House of, 41; contest with 
king, 236-37, 271-72; representa- 
tion in, 482-83, 485 

Commonwealth, English, 256-61 

Commune:: of Italy, 7-10; political 
freedom, 8; extent of activity, 9; 
influence of Crusades, 9; com- 
mercial rivals, 10 

Concordat, Napoleon's, 392; re- 
pealed, 507 

Conde, Louis, prince of, 186, 189-90 

Conde, Louis, prince of (the Great 
Conde), 223, 280, 285 

Confederation of the Rhine, 396, 399, 

403, 4°7 [544, 5 6 7 

Confusion, due to imperialist rivalries, 
Congo Free State, 526 
Conservative Party, in Great Britain, 

268, 484, 485, 487 
Constantinople, 301, 426, 461, 489, 

494, 499 > 559. 595 
Constitutionalism, 421, 434, 435, 

443. 446, 454. 5 J 2 
Constitution of the Clergy , French, 392 
Consulate, French, 388-94 
Continental System of Napoleon, 

400-1, 404 
Conventicle Act, of England, 264 
Copernicus, 19, 533 
Corday, Charlotte, 374 
Cordeliers, French Club, 360 
Corneille, 202, 288 
Corn Laws (English), repealed, 485 
Corsica, ceded to France, 385 
Cortes of Spain, 38, 108, 116 
Corvee, 350, 361 



Council of Blood, 165 

Council of Five Hundred (France), 

383, 388 
Council of the Ancients (France), 383 
Councils of the Church, General, 80; 

of Constance, 55; of Trent, 102-4; 

of the Vatican, 104 
Counter Reformation, 97-106; set 

Catholic Reformation; agencies, 

101-2; becomes aggressive, 105-6; 

in Germany, 204 
Coup d'etat of Napoleon, 388; of 

CharlesX.,430; of Louis Napoleon, 

459-60 
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop, 129, 

1 33> J 34, 140 

Crespy, Peace of, 79 

Crete, 425, 498 

Crimean War, 461-62, 489 

Cromwell, Oliver, 250-61, 262; con- 
quers Scotland, 256; subdues 
Ireland, 256; Lord Protector, 257- 
61; foreign wars, 259-60 

Cromwell, Thomas, 130-32 

Crusades, influence on commerce, 
9-10 

Cuba, 518-19 

Custozza, battle of, 466, 472 

Czaslau, battle of, 314 

Czechs, 206, 449, 452, 453, 512 

Danton, 360, 363, 368, 370, 378 

Dardanelles,* 293 

Darnley, Lord, 150 

Da Vinci, Leonardo; see Vinci, Leo- 
nardo da 

Declaration of Indulgence, English, 
266, 269-70 

Democracy, reaction against, 414-27, 

433, 436-37, 449-5°. 45 2 -57; 
progress of, 530-31, 538-4I 
Denmark, government of, 527; Nor- 
way and, 86, 528; Prussia and, 448, 
470-71; Schleswig-Holstein affair, 
447-48, 456, 470-71, 527; Sweden 
and, 86, 294-95; Thirty Years' 
War, 2 1 2-1 6 



648 



Index 



Diderot, 351 

Directory, French, 383-88 

Discovery, Age of, 10-13 

Disraeli, Conservative minister, 485 

Dissenters, in England, 264, 266, 269, 
272, 482 

Divine Right, theory of, 232-33, 269, 
271, 272 

Doctrine, of works, 51-52, 66; of 
justification by faith, 66, 180; of 
predestination, 96 

Donauworth, affair of, 2C5 

Don John of Austria, 115 

Dover, Treaty of, 266-67, 280, 281 

Dragonnades, 282 

Drake, Sir Francis, 152, 155, 173 

Dresden, Peace of, 315 

Drogheda, massacre of, 256 

Dryden, John, 273 

Dual Alliance, 507, 511, 550-51 

Duma, Russian Assembly, 501 

Dumouriez, 369 

Dunbar, battle of, 256 

Dunkirk, 260 

Dutch Republic, 170-77, 222; com- 
mercial power, 176, 259, 266; art 
and science, 176—77; colonies of, 
176, 265, 525 

Dutch, see Holland 

East IndiaCompany, English, 239,488 
Ecclesiastical Reservation, 82, 203 
Edward VI. of England, 133-37 
Edward VII. of England, 490 
Egmont, count of, 163, 165 
Egypt, 386-87, 494~95> 499, 554 
Elba, Napoleon at, 409-10 
Elizabeth of England, 141-56, 231; 
character as woman, 141; as states- 
man, 142; religious policy, 142-45, 
148; relations to Mary Stuart, 
queen of Scots, 146, 151-53; aids 
the Protestants, 152, 172-73; last 
years, 154-55 
Elizabeth of Russia, 320 
Emancipation Bill, Catholic (Eng- 
lish), 482, 486 



Emigres, 357^ 365, 429, 431 
Emperor, election of, 26; weakness 
of, 27-28; Napoleon and title of, 

39 6 

Empire, of France, under Napoleon 
I., 394-412; under Napoleon III., 
460-67, 474-7 6 

England, 40-43, "9"5 6 . 23 I- 73> 
323-40; American War, 339; and 
the Dutch, 172-73, 259, 265-67, 
280, 283, 285, 336; Austrian Suc- 
cession War, 315, 317, 333, 335; 
church and religious freedom in, 
128-32, 133-35, 138, 143-46, 234, 
240-41, 245, 249, 252, 255, 263-64, 
266, 267, 482; colonies of, 15, 43, 

239, 28 7> 33°, 33 2 , 33 6aL 39, 4*6, 
480, 487-90; constitutional mon- 
archy, 41-42, 232-33, 236-37, 242- 
44, 248-49, 255, 269-70, 271-72, 
327-29, 331; France and, 122-24, 
140, 142-1-48, 151, 242, 265-67, 
3S0-81, 283-87, 317-18, 323-40, 

37i, 3 8l > 3 86 ~9°, 395. 399-4oo, 
402—3, 409, 411, 416, 426, 480-81, 
489, 508, 511; government of. 41- 
42, 232, 323, 327-28, 480-83; 
literature, 156; Louis XTV. and, 
265-67, 283-85, 324, 327, 336; 
Puritan revolution in, 231-73; 
Reformation in, 121, 125-32, 133— 
35, 143-46; Restoration, 261-71; 
Revival of Learning in, 119-22, 
155; Scotland and, 123-24, 146-47, 
I 5 I ~53, 231-32, 2 47-48, 33°; sea 
power of, 155, 317, 329, 330, 333, 
338, 386-87, 399-400, 481; Seven 
Years' War, 317-18, 319, 320, 337- 
38, 339; Spain and, 114, 122-25, 
i39-4o, 145, 152-54, 162, 173, 241- 
42, 238-39, 332-33, 4°2-3, 409, 
422-23; Spanish Succession War, 
284-87, 329-30, 334; Thirty Years' 
War, 211-12, 238; under the 
Stuarts, 231-73; under the Tudors, 
40-43, 119-56, 232-33; see Great 
Britain 



Index 



649 



Erasmus, 63-64; critic, translator, 
and editor, 63-64; "Praise of 
Folly," 64 
Essex, earl of, 154 
Eugene, prince of Savoy, 285, 286 
Eugenie, empress of France, 477 
Europe in nineteenth century, Minor 
States of, 5i6-2o;Belgium, 525-27; 
Denmark, 527-28; Holland, 524- 
25; Portugal, 519-21; Spain, 516- 
19; Sweden and Norway, 528-29; 
Switzerland, 521-24 

Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 252, 254 
Fawkes, Guy, 235 
Federal Pact of Switzerland, 522 
Federation, North German, 472-73 
Fehrbellin, battle of, 307 
Ferdinand of Aragon, conquers 

Naples and Spanish Navarre, 38; 

establishes Spanish Inquisition, 39; 

extends the royal authority, 38, 

108; marries Isabella of Castile, 37 
Ferdinand of Brunswick, 319, 338 
Ferdinand I., emperor, 204 
Ferdinand II., emperor, 208, 209, 

210, 211, 213, 215, 223 
Ferdinand I., emperor of Austria, 

446, 454 
Ferdinand I. of Naples, 420-21 
Ferdinand VII. of Spain, 401-2, 

420, 516-17 
Feuillants, 365 
Finland, 298, 491 
Five Mile Act, of England, 264 
Flanders, 157, 159, 170, 171, 176; 

see Netherlands, Flemings 
Flemings, 432 
Fleury, Cardinal, 335 
Florence, 18, 32-35; see Grand 

Duchy of Tuscany; ruled by the 

Medici, 33 
Fontenoy, battle of, 333 
Forest Cantons, 86, 90, 521 
Formosa, see Japan 
France, 35-37, 178-202, 274-88, 

322-40, 343-413 428-32, 438-44, 



458-63, 478-79, 504-8; ascendancy 
under Louis XIV., 274-88, 327, 
336; Austria and, 165-66, 369, 371, 
381, 383-85, 387-90, 395-96. 399, 
403-4, 407-9; Austrian Succession 
War, 313-15, 333, 335; before the 
Revolution, 344-53; Bourbon res- 
toration, 409, 411, 428-30; church 
in, 347-48, 392, 506-7; England 
and, rivalry with, 122-24, I 4°» 
142-48, 151, 242, 265-67, 380-81, 
283-87, 317-18, 323-40, 371, 381, 
386-90, 395, 399-400, 402-3, 409, 
411, 416, 426, 480-81, 489, 508, 
511; colonies of, 278, 287, 336-37, 
338,344, 5°4,5°7-8; Directory, 383- 
88; European coalitions against, 
280, 283, 285, 371, 381, 387-88, 
407-9; feudalism in, 35, 200, 275, 
346-50; Franco-PrussianWar,474- 
77; French-Spanish rivalry, 29-31, 
3 6 , 38, 71-72, 75— 7 6 » 79, 112-13, 
122, 162, 178-79, 183-84, 197-98, 
201, 276, 279; Germany and, 83, 
184, 197, 201, 222, 279, 280-82, 
335, 387-88, 375-77; government 
°f, 35-3 6 , !78, ±&3, 201, 345-46, 
353, 389, 39°-93, 428, 443, 449, 
505-7; in Spain, 401-3, 409, 422; 
Italy and, 383-85, 387-89, 394, 
395, 462-63, 465, 466—67; literature 
of, 288; Louis Napoleon and, 443- 
44, 458-67; Napoleon's reign, 
388-413; Orleans monarchy, 430- 
32, 436-41; political parties in, 
439, 458, 505; Reformation in, 
180-96; Republic of (1792-99), 
369-88; (1848-51), 441-44, 458- 
59; (1870), 477-79, 504-8, 5"; 
Revolution (1789), 344-413; (1830) 
430-32; (1848), 438-44; revolu- 
tion, industrial, in, 439, 442; Russia 
and, 507, 537; sea power, 324, 338, 
344, 386-87, 395, 399-400; Seven 
Years' War, 317-21, 337, 344; 
Spanish Succession War, 284-87, 
327, 329-30; Thirty Years' War, 



650 



Index 



201, 222-26, 274; Turkey and, 79, 

386-87, 426, 461-62 
Franche-Comte, 282 
Francis I., emperor (Francis of 

Lorraine), 315, 321 
Francis II., emperor, 365, 384, 389; 

assumes title of emperor of Austria, 

396 

Francis I., emperor of Austria, 396; 

see Francis II., emperor 
Francis Joseph of Austria, 463, 

512-15 
Francis I. of France, conquers Milan 
(1515), 31; rivalry with Charles V., 
31, 71, 76, 179; French-Spanish 
wars of, 31, 36, 75-77, 79, 179; 
alliance with the Turk, 79; Renais- 
sance and, 179-80; Reformation 
and, 179-82 
Francis II. of France, 185, 188 
Franco-German War, 474-77 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, 418, 447, 455 
Franklin, Benjamin, 339 
Frederick, Elector Palatine, 208, 

209-10, 211, 238 
Frederick VII. of Denmark, 470 
Frederick of Hohenzollern, 303 
Frederick I. of Prussia, 309 
Frederick II., the Great, of Prussia, 
311-22, 333; seizes Silesia, 313; 
domestic labors, 316, 321; per- 
sonal qualities, 311-12, 316; Seven 
Years' War and, 317-21; acquires 
West Prussia, 321; results of reign, 
3i5, 322 
Frederick the Wise, of Saxony, 65, 71, 

80-81 
Frederick William, Great Elector, 
305-8; acquires four bishoprics 
and East Pomerania, 305; acquires 
sovereignty of East Prussia, 307; 
policy of paternalism, 306 
Frederick William I. of Prussia, 309- 
12; administrative genius, 310; 
acquires Stettin, 311 
Frederick William III. of Prussia, 
397 



Frederick William IV. of Prussia, 
446, 448, 454-56, 468; rejects the 
Imperial crown, 455; tries to form 
German union, 456 

French Revolution, see Revolution 
French 

Friars, 46 

Friedland, battle of, 398 

Fronde, 275-76 

Galileo, 533 

Gama, Vasco da, n 

Gambetta, organizes government ot 
defence after Sedan, 477 

Garibaldi, commands forces of 
Roman Republic, 452; captures the 
Two Sicilies, 464-65 

Geneva, struggles for freedom, 91; 
Reformation in, 92-97 

Genoa, Napoleon and, 385, 390, 394; 
annexed to Sardinia, 415 

George I. of Great Britain, 330-32 

George II., 320, 332-38 

George III., 320, 338 

George I. of Greece, 494, note 

German Empire, birth of, 477-78; 
Bismarck as Chancellor, 508-n; 
and the Catholic Church, 509; 
growth of socialism, 510; Triple 
Alliance , 5 1 1 , 5 50; end of by revolu • 
tion, 583 

Germany, 25-29, 59-84, 203-27, 
445-57, 468-79, 508-12; see Holy 
Roman Empire; see also Prussia, 
Austria, Bavaria, and German 
Empire; attempts to unify, 26-28, 
395-96, 4i7~ l8 » 434, 446-47, 455- 
57, 472-73, 477-78; Austria and, 
3 J 7, 322, 3S5-5 6 , 47J-73, 550; 
Austrian Succession War, 313-15, 
335; Bund of, 418, 433-34, 435, 
446, 447, 456, 470, 473; colonies of, 
540; feudalism in, 26-27, 417; 
France and, 83, 183, 184, 222, 335, 
381; Franco-German War, 475~77; 
German Parliament, 446-47, 455- 
56; government of 26-27, 22 5> 



Index 



651 



446, 454, 473, 509; later Empire of, 
508-12; Louis XIV. and, 277, 
280-84; Napoleon and, 389, 395- 
96, 399, 401, 406-8, 417; peasant 
revolt in, 74-75; Reformation in, 
59-84, 202, 204; Renaissance in, 
59-65; revolution of (1830), 433- 
35; revolution of (1848), 446-48, 
454-57; Russia and, 511, 549; 
Seven Years' War, 318, 319, 337, 
338; Spain and, 107-8; see Charles 
V., Netherlands, revolt of; Thirty 
Years' War, 203-27 
Ghent, pacification of, 169-70 
Gibraltar, England acquires, 287,330 
Gironde, 365, 370-72, 376 
Girondists, 365, 366, 370, 372, 375 
Gladstone, Liberal minister, 485, 487 
" Glorious Revolution " (England), 

27 J -737 3 3 3 
Gorgei, Hungarian patriot, 453 
Grand Alliance (Empire, England, 

Holland), 285, 287 
Gravelotte, battle of, 476 
Great Britain (since 1707), see Eng- 
land; at the Congress of Vienna, 
409, 414-19; colonies of, 487-90, 
S39-4o,S4i-43»54S; Crimean War, 
461-62, 489, 495; Egypt and, 499, 
554-55; foreign policy, 489-90; 
Germany and, 490, 511; govern- 
ment of, 490; Holy Alliance and, 
418-19, 421, 422-23, 426, 481; 
Imperial Federation, 487-88; in- 
dustrial revolution, 535-36; Irish 
Settlement, 486-87; Portugal and, 
423; reforms (since 1822), 481- 
86; Russia and, 426, 489-90, 493, 
494-96, 499; Turkey and, 426, 
489-90, 495, 499, 559, 594-96 
Great Elector, Frederick William, 

305-8 
Greece, revolution in, 423-27, 493-94 
Greek Church, 289, 424, 493, 498 
Greeks, 424, 493, 499, 575, 593 
Grevy, President of the French Re- 
public, 506 



Grotius, Hugo, 176 

Grouchy, Marshal, 411 

Grey, Earl, Whig minister, 483 

Grey, Lady Jane, 136-37 

Guelph, family of, 330 

Guise, family of, 186, 191; Francis, 
duke of, 186, 188-89; Henry, duke 
of, 192, 193, 194 

Guizot, French minister and his- 
torian, 440-41 

Gunpowder Plot, in England, 235 

Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, 212, 
294 ; and Thirty Years' War, 2 1 6-20 

Gutenberg, John, 21 

Haakon, king of Norway 529 

Haarlem, 160, 168 [546 

Hague, Peace Meetings (1897, 1907), 

Hals, Frans, 176 

Hampden, John, 246, 251 

Hanover, 298, 327, 332, 417, 473; 
House of, 330 

Hapsburg, House of, 26, 70, 158, 199, 
201, 205, 308; dominions, 28, 37- 
38, 71, 206, 208, 287, 308, 315, 512, 
514; division of, 83-84, 287; counts 
of, 86, 87, 521; rivalry with House 
of Bourbon, 197, 207, 212, 222, 
284, 317; Austrian branch, 197, 
276, 284, 312, 315, 453, 514; 
Spanish branch, 197, 222, 276; 
rivalry with Prussia, 308, 312-22, 
405, 455-57, 466, 471-72 

Hebert, 377-78 

Hebertists, 377-78 

Henrietta Maria, queen of England, 
240 

Henry III. of France, 192, 193-94 

Henry VII. of England, 41-43 

Henry VIII. of England, 121-33; 
foreign policy, 122-23; his wars, 
124; Defender of the Faith, 125-26; 
marriage and divorce from Cathe- 
rine of Aragon, 125-29; breaks 
with Pope, 128; head of National 
Church, 128-29; suppresses mon- 
asteries, 130-31 



652 



Index 



Henry of Navarre, 190, 191, 193, 194; 
see Henry IV. of France 

Henry II. of France, occupies Ger- 
man bishoprics, 83, 184; renounces 
Italy, 113, 162, 183, 184 

Henry IV. of France (Henry of 
Navarre), 194-98; abjures Prot- 
estant faith, 195; domestic policy, 
195-97 

Herzegovina, 495~97, 5*5 

High Commission, court of, 245, 248 

Highlanders, revolt of, 334 

History, defined, 1-3 

Hohenzollern, House of, 303, 305, 
455. 473? deposition, 583 

Holland (Netherlands, Dutch Nether- 
lands, Seven United Provinces), 
112, 157, 161, 165, 168, 169, 170, 
172, 175-77; Austrian Succession 
War, 314-15; Belgium and, 416, 
43 2 -33. S 2 45 France and, 381, 385, 
394, 404; government, 524-25; 
Thirty Years' War, 174, 211 

Holy Alliance, 418-19, 423, 426, 517 

Holy Roman Empire, 25-29, 59, 309, 
335; see Emperor, and Germany; 
origin of name, 25; government, 
26-27; electors of, 26; feudalism 
in, 26-27, 417; decentralized by the 
Treaty of Westphalia (1648), 225; 
Austria and, 314, 318, 319, 396; 
Napoleon and, 389-90, 395-96, 
399. 408, 417 

Horn, count of, 163, 165 

Hubertsburg, Peace of, 321 

Huguenots, 186-93, 196, 198-200, 
242, 274, 282-83; Great Elector 
and, 306 

Humanism, 17; Italian and German, 
60-61; in the universities, 17, 61- 
63; reformers of , 64; in France, 
180 

"Hundred Days," Napoleon's, 410- 
ir 

Hungary (Hungarians), 313, 449, 
452-54, 512-15; revolution (1848), 
449, 452-54; revolution (1918), 594 



Huss, John, 55, 60, 206 
Hutten, Ulrich von, 63 

Iceland, 528 

Illyrian provinces, 404 

Independents, in England, 253, 264 

Index, papal, 105 

India, 337-38, 387, 489, 499; a dis- 
turbed area, 601 

Indulgences, sale of, 52, 67-68 

Innocent III., Pope, 54 

Inquisition, Spanish, 39-40, 109-n, 
117; first appearance of, 54, 101; 
Roman (also Papal Inquisition), 
101-2, 183; in Netherlands, 160- 
61, 162, 163 

Intendants, French, 200, 345 

Interim, 81 

Ireland, Anglican Church dises- 
tablished in, 486; Cromwell con- 
quers, 256, 326; Home Rule agita- 
tion, 339, 486-87; Land Acts, 487; 
revolts of, 325, 326; relations to 
England, 325-26 339-40 

Ironsides, Cromwell's, 251 

Isabella, queen of Castile, n, 37, 108 

Isabella of Spain, 517-18 

Ismail, pasha and khedive of Egypt, 
556 

Italy, 29-35, 445-57. 462-67, 502-4; 
and the Congress of Vienna, 415— 
16; and the Pope, 72, 76, 450-51, 
503-4; art and literature, 16-18; 
Austria and, 384, 390, 395, 415, 
417, 421, 433, 462-63, 466, 471-72; 
cities of, 7-9, 18, 32-33; colonial 
policy, 504; government, 502; lead- 
ing states prior to unification, 29— 
35; Napoleon in, 383-85, 389-90, 
394, 395, 3991 Revolution (1848), 
449-52; rival French and Spanisk 
claims, 29-31, 36, 38, 71, 76, 112— 
13, 162, 178-79, 183-84; Sardinia 
and Italian liberation, 449-52, 
462-67; Triple Alliance, 504, 507, 

5". 5i5. 55°>55 6 
Ivan IV. the Terrible, of Russia, 289 



Index 



653 



Jacobin Club, 369, 380 

Jacobins, 360, 373, 378 

Jamaica, 260 

James I. of England (VI. of Scot- 
land), 231-39; and Thirty Years' 
War, 211-12, 238; and Parliament, 
235-37; and the Puritans, 233-35 

James II. (duke of York), 265, 267, 
268, 269-72, 324-25 

James, the Pretender, 330 

Japan, 490, 499-500, 556, 586 

Jeffreys, Judge; see Bloody Assizes 

Jena, battle of, 397 

Jesuits (Society of Jesus), 98-106; 
constitution of order, 99-101; 
champions of the Papacy, 100-4, 
105-6; at the Council of Trent, 104 

Jews, 39, 101, 109—10 

Joachim II., elector of Brandenburg, 

303 

John IV. of Portugal, 519-20 

John Sigismund, elector of Branden- 
burg, 304 

Jonson, Ben, 156 

Josephine (Beauharnais), empress of 
France, 394, 404 

Joseph II., emperor, 321-22 

Jourdan, General, 381, 383, 384 

Julius II., 34, 125 

Just, Saint, 378 

Kappel, Peace of, 90-91 
Kaunitz, Austrian minister, 317 
Kitchener, General, 568 
Knights, Teutonic, 304 
Knox, John, 147, 148 
Korea, 500 
Kosciusko, 300 
Kossuth, Louis, 453 
Kunersdorf, battle of, 320 

Lafayette, marquis de, leader in 
National Assembly, 355; com- 
mander of the National Guard, 
358; removes Royal Family to 
Paris, 359-60; in revolution of 
1830, 431 



Laibach, Congress of, 421, 423 

Landfrieden, 27 

La Rochelle, 196, 199 

Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 

244-45, 2 48, 249 
Laws of the Guarantees (Italian), 503 
League of Cambray (France, Em- 
pire, Spain, Pope), 32 
Lefevre, Jacques, 180 
Legislative Assembly, 364-69 
Legitimist, party in France, 439, 440, 

4S8, 5°5 

Leicester, earl of, 173 

Leipsic, battle of, 408 

Leopold L, emperor, 308 

Leopold II., emperor, 365-66 

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, king of 
Belgium, 433 

Leopold I. of Belgium, 525 

Leopold II. of Belgium, 525-26 

Leopold, prince of Hohenzollern- 
Sigmaringen, candidate for the 
throne of Spain, 475, 517 

Leo X., Pope, patron of letters and 
art, 34; excommunicates Luther, 
69; and Henry VIII. , 125 

Leo XIII. , Pope, 506 

"Letters of Obscure Men," 62-63 

Lepanto, battle of, 1 14-15 

Lettre de cachet, 345 

Leuthen, battle of, 319 

Leyden, siege of, 168-69; University 
of, 169 

Liberalism, 413, 19, 435, 445, 539-41 

Liberals, party in Great Britain, 268, 
484, 485, 487 

Ligurian Republic, 385, 394 

Lit de justice, 345 

Lombardy, 384, 385, 417, 450, 463 

London, Treaty of (1827), 426; Con- 
ference of (1830), 433; (1852), 456; 
Protocol of (1852), 456, 471 

Long Parliament, 248, 261, 271 

Lords, feudal, 20, 23; see Barons, 
also Nobles 

Lords, House of, English, 41, 237, 
255, 268 



654 



Index 



Lorraine, acquired by France, 335, 
476; acquired by Germany, 477 

Louise of Savoy, 181 

Louis Philippe of France, 431, 438- 
41 

Louis XII. of France, claims Milan, 
31; Holy League formed against, 

31, 36 

Louis XIII. of France, 198, 199 

Louis XIV. (Grand Monar que), reign, 
276-88, 344, 345, 352; England 
and, 265-67, 324-25, 327; absolute 
monarchy, 276-77, 345; court at 
Versailles, 277, 288; continental 
aggression, 279, 288, 324, 336; 
wars, 279-87: for Spanish Nether- 
lands, 279-80; with Dutch, 280-82, 
307; of the Palatinate, 283-84, 327; 
of Spanish Succession, 285-87; 
seizes Strasburg, 282; revokes 
Edict of Nantes, 282-83, 3°6 

Louis XV., 315, 334-3 6 , 345~46, 
352 

Louis XVI., 352; attempts reforms, 
3S 2- 53> assembles the States- 
General, 353; flight to Varennes, 
362-63; suspended by the Legis- 
lative Assembly, 367; condemned 
and executed by the National 
Convention, 370 

Louis XVIII. of France, 409, 410, 
411, 428-29 

Loyola, Ignatius, 99, 205 

Luneville, Peace of, 389-90 

Lutheranism (and Lutherans), 82, 
86, 88, 89, 203-4, 225 

Luther, Martin, 60, 65-73; leader of 
Reformation, 64; his doctrines, 66- 
67; protests against indulgences, 
68; in revolt, 68-69; his theses, 68; 
excommunicated, 69; at Diet of 
Worms, 70-71; outlawed, 71-72; 
conservatism of, 73, 75; and peas- 
ant revolt, 74-75; death (1546), 80 

Liitzen, battle of (1632), 220; (1813), 
407 

Lyons, revolt of, 376 



Macedonia, 498-99 5 cey t c6i 
MacMahon, Marshal, 476, 505-6 
Madagascar, 507 
Madeira, 520 
Magdeburg, 218 
Magenta, battle of, 463 
Maintenon, Madame de, 282 
Malplaquet, battle of, 286 
Malta, England acquires, 416 
Mamelukes, 387 
Manchuria, 500 
Marat, 360, 368, 370, 372, 374 
Marches of Umbria, seized by 

Garibaldi, 465 
Marengo, battle of, 389 
Margaret of Navarre, 181 
Margaret of Parma, 162-64 
Maria de' Medici, 198 
Maria Theresa, 312-22, 335 
Marie Antoinette, 352, 365, 375 
Marie Louise, empress of France, 404 
Marignano, battle of, 31, 36 
Maritime discoveries, 10-15 
Marlborough, duke of, 285-86, 329 
Marlowe, Christopher, 156 
Marston Moor, battle of, 251 
Marx, Karl, 538 
Mary I. of England, 137-41; restores 

Catholicism, 138; marries Philip 

II. of Spain, 139; persecutions 

under, 139-40 
Mary II. of England, 270-71 
Mary of Burgundy, 28, 158 
Mary, queen of Scots, 146-53, 185; 

her character, 149 
Massena, General, 388 
Matthias, Emperor, 206, 208 
Maurice of Nassau, 174-75 
Maurice of Saxony, 81, 83, 183 
Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, 205, 

209, 210, 225 
Maximilian, emperor of Mexico, 474 
Maximilian I., emperor of Germany, 

26-28, 59; attempted reforms, 27; 

lucky marriage alliances, 28, 158; 

de^th, 28, 70 
Mazarin, Cardinal, 275-76 



Index 



65s 



Mazzini, Italian patriot, 451-52, 459 

Meaux, 180-81 

Medici, family of, n, 34 

Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, 425, 

494-95 

Melanchthon, 77 

"Merry Monarch," see Charles II. 
of England 

Metternich, Prince (Austrian states- 
man), 408-9, 418-25. 43 2 > 434, 
445-46 

Metz, 83, 184, 224, 476, 477 

Mexico, 474 

Middle Ages, 6, 7, n, 16, 17, 18, 20, 

23, 53. !59 
Miguel, Don, Portuguese Pretender, 

520 
Milan, a fief of the Empire, 30, 31; 

rival French and Spanish claims, 

31, 36, 71, 112-13, 179; revolution 

(1848), 449-5° 
Milan I. (Obrenovitch) of Servia, 497 
Milton, John, 273 
Minorca, 287, 330 
Mirabeau, Count, 355, 362, 377 
Mohammedans, see Turks, Turkey, 

etc. 
Moliere, 288 
Mollwitz, battle of, 313 
Moltke, von, Prussian general, 476 
Monarchy, feudal, 23, 346; absolute, 

23-24, 41—42, 129, 133, 200, 232- 

33, 242, 249, 272, 276, 345 
Monarchist, party in France, 430, 

43 8 , 440, 45 8 -59, 47 8 , 5°5-° 

Monasteries, 46, 72; English, sun- 
pressed by Henry VIII., 130-31 

Monastic orders, 46, 98 

Mongols, 289 

Monk, George, General, 26t 

Monks, 45-46, 72 

Monmouth, duke of, 270 

Monroe Doctrine, 433, 474 

Montenegro, 496-97 

Montesquieu, 351 

More, Sir Thomas, 120-21, 129-30; 
Utopia of, 120-21 



Morea, 425, 426 

Moreau, General (French), 383, 384, 

389 
Moors in Spain, 37, 39, 109-10, 

1 16-17 
Morocco, 508, 554-55 
Moscow, Napoleon at, 405; retreat 

from, 406 
Mountain (French party), 370-73, 

376 
Miihlberg, battie of, 81 
Mukden, battle of, 500 
Murat, grand-duke of Berg, 399; king 

of Naples, 402 
Murillo, 118 
Mutiny Act of England, 328 

Nantes, Edict of, 196, 198, 199, 200, 
306; Reign of Terror in, 377 

Naples, Austria and, 287, 421; Bour- 
bons and, 417, 420, 465; Napoleon 
and, 399, 4c 2; Piedmont acquires, 
464-65; rebellion (1820), 420-22; 
revolution (1848), 449-50; rival 
French and Spanish claims, 29-31, 

36, 38 
Napoleon I., Bonaparte, early life of, 
385; commands the Army of Italy, 
383; Treaty of Campo Formio, 
384; Egyptian campaign, 386-87; 
coup d'etat of Brumaire, 388; first 
Consul, 389; Peace of Luneville, 
389-90; Peace of Amiens, 390; 
administrative reforms, 391; Civil 
Code and Concordat, 392-93; 
emperor of the French, 394; re- 
news war with England, 395, 399; 
Austerlitz, 395; settlement of 
Germany, 395-96, 399; war against 
Prussia, 396-97; Peace of Tilsit, 
398, 400; continental system, 400- 
1, 404; receives crown of Spain, 
401-2; revolt of the peninsula, 
402-3, 405; war with Austria, 404; 
invasion of Russia and retreat, 
405-6; Prussia leads in German 
revolt, 406-7; defeated by the 



6 5 6 



Index 



Allies, 408; assigned to Elba, 409; 
returns to France, 410; "Hundred 
Days," 410-11; abdication and 
exile, 411 

Napoleon III., Louis, 443-44; Presi- 
dent of French Republic, 443-44; 
restores Papal Government, 451- 
52, 459; coup d'etat, 459-60; 
foreign policy, 460; Crimean War, 
460-62; champions Italian unity, 
462-67; annexes Savoy and Nice, 
464, 474; secures Venetia for 
Sardinia, 466; failure of Mexican 
Expedition, 474; anger against 
Prussia, 474-75; Franco-Prussian 
War, 475-76 

Narva, battle of, 295 

Naseby, battle of, 252, 253, 254 

Nassau, family of, 165, 175 

National Assembly (also Constituent 
Assembly), of France, 354-64 

National Convention of France, 369- 
72 

National Guard of France, 358, 359, 

363 

Nationalism, 413, 418. 419, 435, 445, 
449. S3°y S4o, 586-87, 597-600 

Navarino, battle of, 426 

Navigation Acts of England, 259, 265 

Necker (French minister), 353 

Nelson, Admiral, 386-87, 399 

Netherlands, Austrian, 287, 333 

Netherlands, Dutch (Seven United 
Provinces), 170-77, 226, 279, 286, 
287; see Holland 

Netherlands (or Low Countries), 28, 
157-77; revolt of, 112, 113, 157-77; 
under Spain, 158, 160-74; king- 
dom of, 416, 43 2 -33 

Netherlands, Spanish, 112, 170, 176- 
77, 266, 279, 286, 287; Austria ac- 
quires, 287; Louis XIV. and, 266, 
279-80 

Newfoundland, 287, 330 

New model ordinance (England), 252 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 533 

Ney, Marshal, 406, 410 



Nice, annexed to France, 384, 464 

Nicholas I. of Russia, 426, 436, 454, 
460-62, 492, 495 

Nicholas II. of Russia, grants a con- 
stitution, 501; and The Hague 
court, 546; deposed, 571 

Nimwegen, Treaty of, 282 

Nobles (nobility), 20-21, 23-24; in * 
England, 41-43; in France, 35, 
198, 200, 275-76, 346; in Poland, 
300, 426 

Nordlingen, battle of, 221, 222 

Northumberland, duke of, 135-37 

Norway, Reformation in, 86; Sweden 
and, 86, 528-29 

Nuremberg, Peace of, 78, 79 

Nystadt, Treaty of, 298 

Oates, Titus, see "Popish Plot" 
O'Connell, Daniel, Irish patriot, 482, 

486 
Orange Free State, 488 
Orange, House of (House of Nassau), 

i 6 5» 1757 4i6, S 2 4, 5 2 5 
Orders in Council, English, 400 
Orleanist, party in France, 458, 505 
Orleans, duke of (Egalite), 375 
Orleans, duke of (Louis Philippe), 

43i 
Orleans, duke of (Regent), 334-35 
Oscar II. of Sweden, 529 
Osman Pasha, 496 
Otto, king of Greece, 426-27 
Ottoman Empire, 460-61, 489, 493— 

99; see Turkey 
Oudenarde, battle of, 286 
Oxenstiern, Chancellor of Sweden,, 



Palatinate, in Thirty Years' War, 
210-12, 225; War of the, 283-84, 
3 2 7 

PapalStates, 33-35, 384,404,417,433; 
insurrection quelled by Austria, 
433; revolution (1848), 449-52; 
held by French for the Pope, 465, 
466; annexed to Italy, 467, 503-4 



Index 



657 



Paris, Commune in, 478; insurrec- 
tion of workingmen, 442; munici- 
pality of, 368, 378; mob rule in 

35 6 ~ 6 °, 3 66 ~ 6 7, 3 6 9, 37°, 37 2 , 379, 
382; occupied by the Allies, 409; 
by the Germans, 477; Peace of 
(1763), 338. 344; (1898), 519; 
Parlement of, 36, 275; revolution 
(1789-95), 353-83; (1830), 430-31; 
(1848), 430; Treaty of (1814), 409; 
(1815), 411, 414; (1856), 461, 489, 
495; peace conference (1919), 584-96 

Paris, count of, 441 

Parliament, English, 24, 41—42; con- 
trols taxation, 42, 236, 242; under 
the Tudors, 41-42, 128-29, T 3&~39> 
143, 232-33; contest with king, 
2 3S-37, 240-43, 248-49, 271-72; 
supremacy established, 272; con- 
stitution building, 327-29, 331 

Parliament, German, 446-47, 455- 
56; offers Imperial crown to 
Frederick William IV., 455 

Parliaments (parlements) , French, 
36, 183, 201, 345 

Parma, duke of, 153, 170-74 

Paul III., Pope, 80, 99 

Paul IV., Pope, 98 

Pavia, battle of, 76, 179, 181 

Peasants, revolt in Germany, 74-75; 
of France, 349-50; in Russia, 492; 
in Poland, 436 

Pedro I., emperor of Brazil, 519- 
20 

Pedro II., emperor of Brazil, 520 

Penance, 51-52, 65-66 

Perry, Commodore, 544 

Petition of Right, English, 242-43, 
263, 271 

Peter I., the Great, of Russi", 290-99; 
policy, 91—92; reforms, 293, 298; 
designs on Sweden, 293; opposed 
by Charles XII., 294-97 

Peter III., 320 

Petrarch, 16-17 

Philip II. of Spain, 110-17; character, 
in, 116; champions Catholicism, 



112-14; his wars, 112-15, 162, 
165-74 

Philip III. of Spain, 117 

Philip V. of Spain, 284, 286, 287 

Philip of Hesse, 80, 89 

Philippines, 518-19 

Philosophers, French, 350—51 

Pichegru, General (French), 381 

Piedmont, annexed by Napoleon, 
394; granted a constitution, 452; 
insurrection (1820), 421; war with 
Austria, 449—50, 452 

Pitt, William (the Great Commoner), 
337-38 

Pitt, William (the younger), 340 

Pius IX., Pope, 450—52 

Plevna, siege of, 496 

Plain (French party), 370 

Plombieres, Treaty of, alliance be- 
tween Sardinia and France, 462 

Poland (and Poles), and Sweden, 
294-96, 29S; Austria and, 300, 321, 
381, 403; duchy of Warsaw, 398, 
403-4, 416, 435; internal weakness, 
296, 299-300; Napoleon and, 398, 
403—4; Prussia and, 300, 304-5, 
321, 381, 398, 416; revolution 
(1830), 435-37; Russia and, 290, 
299-300, 321, 403-4, 416, 435-37, 
49 J^ 2 , 5oo; reborn 593, 599 

Pole, Cardinal, 138 

Polish Succession War, 335 

Politics, meaning and relation to 
history, 3 ; shaped by commerce and 
industry, 431-44 

Pomerania, East, 225, 305; West, 
224, 294, 298, 305, 307, 308, 310 

Pompadour, Madame de, 337, 344, 
352 

Pope (and papacy), see Reforma- 
tion; and Charles V., 72, 76, 103, 
127; and councils, 103-4; and 
Indulgences, 52, 67-68; and Ref- 
ormation, 58-227; infallibility of, 
104; power of, 45-46, 51-52, 80, 
104-5, z 2 5-2 9; Henry VIII. and, 
124, 125, 127-32; Napoleon and, 



6 5 8 



Index 



384, 392, 404; Papal States, 384, 
404, 417, 433. 4S -S 2 , 465> 466- 
67; and the Italian State, 503—4 

"Popish Plot," of England, 267-68 

Port Arthur, 500 

Porto Rico, 519 

Portsmouth, Peace of, 500 

Portugal, explorations and discover- 
ies, 10-14, 19; colonies of, 13-14, 
520-21; Spain and, 13, 115; Na- 
poleon and, 400-1, 519; revolution 
(1820), 420, 423, 519; Brazil and, 
519-20 

Potsdam, 311 

Pragmatic Sanction of Emperor 
Charles VI., 312-13 

Prague, 206, 208, 209, 221, 318; 
Peace of (1635), 221, 222; (1866), 
472 

Presbyterianism, 148, 234 

Presbyterians, in England, 252-54, 
264 

Pressburg, Peace of, 395 

Pride's Purge, 254 

Prince Henry the Navigator, 10 

Privileged orders, of France, 346-48, 
361, 411 

Protectorate, Cromwell's, 257-61 

Protestantism (and Protestants), 85, 
86, 91, 100, 112-14, 132, 135, 141, 
146, 161, 169, 186, 203-5, 2 °7j 216 
217, 220, 227, 522 

Protestant, origin of name, 78 

Protestant Union of Germany, 205, 
208, 209, 210 

Prussia, 302—22; see Austria, Ger- 
man Empire (of 18 71); acquires 
Alsace and Lorraine, 477; allied 
with Austria against the French 
Revolution, 366, 371, 381; at the 
Congress of Vienna, 415-18; 
Austro-Prussian War (1866), 471- 
73; beginnings of, 304-5; see Bran- 
denburg; Bismarck as Prime Min- 
ister, 469-78; Denmark and, 448, 
470-71; Franco - Prussian War, 
474-77; French Revolution and 



Napoleon, 366, 369, 371, 381, 396* 
400, 406-9, 411, 434; king oi, 
becomes emperor of Germany, 478; 
Poland and, 300, 304-5, 321, 381, 
398, 416; revolution (1848), 446- 
48, 454-57; rivalry with Austria, 
308, 312-22, 415, 455-57, 466 1 
471-72; Seven Years' War, 317- 
21,337; Sweden and, 294, 298,307- 
8, 310-n; Thirty Years' War and, 
218-19, 225-26, 305; Zollverein, 
434 

Prussia, East (also duchy of Prussia) 
3°4-5, 3°7, 3°9; West, 304, 309, 
note; 321 

Ptolemy, geographer and astronomer, 
11, 19 

Pultava, battle of, 297 

Puritans, 145, 233-34, 239, 252; 
revolution of, in England, 231-73 

Pyrenees, Peace of, 118, 276 

Quadrilateral, 449, 463 
Quebec, captured by Wolfe, 338 
Quiberon, battle of, 338 

Racine, 288 

Radetzky, Austrian general, 449—50 

Ramillies, battle of, 286 

Rastadt, Peace of, 287 

Ratisbon, Diet of, 216 

Reformation, 59-227; in Germany, 
59-84; in Europe," 85-106; in 
England, 119-56; in Netherlands, 
157—77; m France, 178-202; and 
Thirty Years' War, 203-27; Coun- 
ter Reformation of Catholic States, 
97-106 

Reform Bill, England, 483-84 

Reichstag, 473 

Reign of Terror in France, 372-80 

Rembrandt, 176 

Renaissance, characteristics, 5-24; 
economic revival, 6-10; maritime 
discoveries, 10-15; revival of learn- 
ing, of the fine arts, 15-18; period 
of investigation and invention,, 18— 



Index 



659 



21; emancipation of the individual, 
21-23; destruction of feudalism, 
growth of absolutism, 23-24; dif- 
ferent character in Italy and Ger- 
many, 60-61 
Republicans, party in France, 439, 

44i, 443-44,45 8 -S9. 478-79> 5°4-6 

Republic, Third, of France, 504-8; 

allied with Russia, 507; church, 

506-7; colonial expansion, 507-8; 

government, 505 

Requesens, 168-69 

Restitution, Edict of, 2x5-16, 217, 

221, 224 
Restoration, English, 261-71, 273 
Reuchlin, John, 62, 63 
Revival of learning, 15-18, 60 
Revolutionary Tribunal, French, 

374-75- 378-8o 
Revolution, French, 344-413; system 
of government and society before, 
344-50; revolt against feudalism, 
350-51; demand for reform, 350- 
53; States-General assembled, 353; 
National Assembly, 350-64; con- 
trolled by mob, 356-60, 362, 367, 
372; abolition of privileges, 361; 
assignats, 361; constitutional mon- 
archy, 361-64, 381-83; declares 
war against Austria, 365-66; over- 
throw of monarchy, 367; militant 
democracy, 368-69, 381; Reign of 
Terror, 369, 372-79; Louis XVI. 
executed, 370-71; First Coalition 
against, 371,381; civil war, 376-77; 
fall of Robespierre, 379-80; peace 
with Prussia and Spain, 381; the 
Directory, 383-88; defeat of Austria 
and Treaty of Campo Formio, 384- 
85; the Rhine boundary, 384, 390, 
408; expedition to Egypt, 386-87; 
Second Coalition, 387-88; the 
Consulate, 388-94; see Napoleon 
Lichelieu, Cardinal, 198-202, 274; 
domestic policy, 199-201, 212; 
absolute monarchy, 200-01, 345; 
foreign policy, 201, 218, 222 



Rizzio, David, 150 

Robespierre, 355, 360, 363, 368, 370, 
373, 378-8o 

Roland, Madame, 375 

Rome, and Renaissance Popes, 33-34, 
97, 98; sacked and pillaged, 76; 
Republic of, 451—52; Italian troops 
enter, 467; national capital, 467 

Romanoff, House of, founded by 
Michael, 290; deposition of (1917), 
571; liquidation of empire, 597-98, 

Rossbach, battle of, 319 [603 

Roumania, 493-96, 562,. 575, 593 

Roundheads, 250 

Rousseau, 351 

Royal Society of England, 273 

Rubens, 177 

Rudolph II., emperor, 205, 206 

Rump Parliament, 254, 256, 257, 260 

Rupert, Prince, 251 

Russia, 289-30J, 491-501; alliance 
with French Republic, 507, 511; 
at the Congress of Vienna, 409, 
416-19; Austria and, 515; China 
and, 499-500; Congress of Berlin 
and, 496-97, 507, 515; England 
and, 387-88, 460-61, 489-90, 493, 
495, 496, 499; expansion in Asia, 

489, 493, 497, 499; France and, 
5°7> 55°, Finland and, 291, 498; 
Holy Alliance of Alexander I., 
418-19, 423, 426, 491; Japan and, 

490, 499-500, 598-99; Napoleon 
and the Treaty of Tilsit, 398-409; 
Poland and, 290, 299-300, 321, 

403-4, 416, 435-37, 491-9 2 , 5°°; 

revolution in, 490, 500-1; Seven 
Years' War, 318-20; Sweden and, 
290, 293-98; Turkey and, 299, 
300-1, 426, 461, 489, 493-99; 
under Catherine II., 299-301; 
under Peter the Great, 290-99 

Ruyter, Admiral, 280 

Ryswick, Peace of, 284 

Sadowa, battle of, 466, 472 
Sakhalin, 500 



66o 



Index 



Sans Souci, 323 
Sardinia-Piedmont, acquires Genoa, 

415, 417; and Austria, 421, 449- 

50, 452; Crimean War, 462; grows 

into kingdom of Italy, 462-65; 

Napoleon and, 384; revolution 

(1848), 449-5°. 452 
Savonarola, 33 
Savoy, duke of, 34-35, 9 1 , 260; 

House of, 35, 452; annexed to 

France, 364, 384 
Saxe, Maurice de, Marshal, 315, 

333 
Saxony, Charles XII. and, 295-98; 
Napoleon and, 398, 408, 416; 
Prussia and, 415-16, 471; Ref- 
ormation in, 73-74, 80-81, 101, 
303; Seven Years' War, 318-19; 
Thirty Years' War, 210, 218-19, 
. 221 

Scharnhorst (Prussian Minister), 407 
Schleswig-Holstein, 447-48, 456, 527; 

Prussia acquires, 472 
Science, progress of, 531-36 
Scotland, and England, 123, 14^6, 
151-53, 247-48, 252-54, 334; and 
France, 123, 147-48; Reforma- 
tion in, 147-48; Cromwell and, 
256; union with England, 232, 

25 6 , 33° 
Sedan, battle of, Napoleon III., 
defeated and taken prisoner, 476- 

77 
Self-denying Ordinance (English), 

252; (French), 364 
Senate (French), 505 
Separation Act (French), 507 
Separatists, 145 
Sepoys, mutiny of, 488 
Serbs, 493, 495, 497, 499, 5 12 
Serbia, 494, 497-9 8 > 557. 559> 5 62 
Servia, see Serbia 
Settlement, Act of, English, 327 
Seven Years' War, 317-21, 337 
Shakespeare, William, 156 
Short Parliament, 247 
Siberia, 499, 501, 597-98 



Sicily, Bourbons in, 417, 421, 464-65' 
Piedmont acquires, 464-65; revolt 
of (1820), 421; Spain (Aragon) 
and, 29, 30; see Naples 

Sieyes, Abbe, 355, 360 

Silesia, claim to, disputed, 308; 
seized by Frederick the Great, 313: 
final cession to Prussia, 321 

Silesian Wars, 313-15, 317 

Slavs, 289, 302, 304, 424, 449, 493, 

49 6 > 5 12 , 5*3 
Smalkald, League of, 78; war of, 

80-81 
Social-Democrats, party in Germany, 

5i° 
Socialism, 439, 441-43, 510, 516, 

537-38 
Socialist, party in France, 439, 442- 

43 

Society, mediaeval, characteristics, 
6-7, 19, 20, 21, 346-50; Renais- 
sance characteristics, 6, 17, 21-23 
61 

Solferino, battle of, 463 

Somerset, duke of, 133-35 

Sophia, electress of Hanover, 327, 

33° 

Sorbonne, 181 

Spain, n-14, 37-40, 107-18, 1 10-18; 
Austrian Succession War, 313, 
332-33; Bourbons in, 184-87, 420, 
422, 475, 516-18; causes of decay, 
37-40, 108-10, 1 16-17; colonies of, 
i3- 1 4, 332-33, 422-23, 517, 518- 
19; England and, 114, 122-25, 
139-40, 145, 152-54, 162, 173, 
238-39, 241-42, 332-33, 402-3. 
409, 422-23; France and, 29-31, 
36, 38, 71, 75-76, 79, 112-13, 122, 
162, 178-80, 182-84, 197-98, 201. 
222, 276, 283, 285, 371, 381; Ger- 
many and, 107-8, 184; govern- 
ment, 38-40, 108-9, 116, 518; In- 
quisition in, 39-40, 101-2, 109- 
10, in, 420, 516; Italy and, 29-31, 
36, 38, 71, 76, 112-13, 178-79, 
183-84; literature and art, 118; 



Index 



66l 



Moors in, 37, 39, 109-10, 116-17; 
Napoleon and, 401-3, 409; Nether- 
lands and, 1 12-14, I 58» IOO_ 74) 
222; Portugal and, 13, 115; re- 
bellion of (1S20), 420-23; Spanish 
Succession War, 284-87, 329-30; 
Turks and, 79, 107, 1 14-15 

Spanish-American War, 518-19 

Spanish Succession War, 284-87 

"Spanish Fury," 169 

Spenser, Edmund, 156 

Spinoza, 176 

Stadtholder of Netherlands, 168, 175, 
281 

Stafford, Thomas Wentworth, earl 
of, see Wentworth, Sir Thomas 

Stamp Act, 339 

Stanislaus Lesczinski, king of Poland, 
296 

Star Chamber, Court of, 42, 248 

States-General of France, 36, 201, 
345, 353; of the Netherlands, 158, 
161, 524 

States of the Church (Papal States), 
33-35; see Pope, Church 

St. Bartholomew, massacre of, 187, 
190-92 

St. Germain, Peace of (1570), 189, 
190 

St. Helena, Napoleon conveyed to, 
411 

St. Petersburg, founding of, 297 

Storthing, Norwegian parliament, 
528 

Strasburg, 224, 282 

Streltsi, 291-93 

Stein (Prussian statesman), 407, 418 

Stettin, acquired by Prussia, 311 

Stuarts, 231-71; deposition of, 254; 
restoration of, 261 

Suez Canal, 576 

Supreme Being, cult of, 378-79, 392 

Suspects, Law of the, 373 

Sweden, Charles XII. rules, 294-98; 
Gustavus Adolphus rules, 212, 
216, 294; independence gained 
under Gustavus Vasa, 86; Louis 



XIV. and, 280, 281, 307-8; 
mistress of the Baltic, 216, 290, 
294-97; Norway and, 528-29; 
Poland and, 295-97, 298; Prussia 
and, 294, 298, 307-8, 310-n; 
Reformation in, 86; Richelieu and, 
218, 222; Russia and, 290, 293-98; 
Seven Years' War, 318, 319; 
Thirty Years' War, 216-22, 224, 
294 

Swiss Guard of Louis XVI., massacre 
of, 367 

Switzerland (Swiss Confederation), 
86-97, 226, 521-24; Congress of 
Vienna and, 522; government, 522; 
Reformation in, 87-97; Treaty of 
Westphalia and, 226, 521 

Talleyrand, 409, 415 

Tenth Penny, tax in Netherlands, 

167-68 
Test Act, English, 267-68, 269, 272, 

482 
Tetzel, 67, 68 
Teutonic Knights, 304 
Thermidorians, rule of, 380-83 
Thermidor, 9th of , fall of Robespierre, 

379 
Thiers, historian and President of 

the French Republic, 440-41, 478 
Third Estate (tiers etat, bourgeoisie), 

24, 47, 348-49, 353-54 
Thirty Years' War, 207-27; Bohe- 
mian Period, 208-ro; Palatine 
Period, 210-12; Danish Period, 
212-16; Swedish Period, 216-22; 
French Period, 222-24; Peace of 
Westphalia, 224-27; effects on 
Germany, 223, 226 
Thorn, Treaty of, 304 
Three Henries, War of, 193 
Tilly, General, 210, 212, 214, 218- 

19 
Tilsit, Peace of, 398-401, 404-5 
Toleration Act, of England, 272-73, 

323 
Toleration Edict of France, 188 



662 



Index 



Toleration, religious, 82, 188, 196, 
199-200, 227, 235, 253, 259, 266, 
269, 272-73, 413, 482, 487 

Tonkin, 507 

Tonnage and poundage, 241, 243, 
244, 249 

Tories, 268-69, 271, 286, 329-31, 
481-84; see Conservative Party 



Toul, 83, 184, 224 ^--ptrecht, Peace of, 287. 329-30 

Toulon, revolt of, 376; Napoleon at, , ^Utrecht, union of, 170-71, 174; see 



377, 382, 386 / 

Trafalgar, battle of, 399-400, 402' 
Transvaal, 488 
Trent, Council of, 80, 102-5; work 

of, 102-4, 204 
Triennial Act, English, 249 
Triple Alliance (1667), 29; (1883), 

5°5> S°7. 5", 5i5, 55°»55S 
Troppau, Congress of, 421 
Tudor, House of, 41 
Tudor monarchy, 41-43, 119-56, 

23 2 ~33> 23° 
Tuileries, royal family prisoners 
in, 359; massacre of the Swiss 
Guard at, 367; invaded by re- 
publican mob, 441; burned during 
the Commune, 479 
Tunis, 504, 508, 537 
Turenne, Marshal, 223, 280 
Turgot (French statesman), 353 
Turkey, England and, 426, 489-90, 
493, 494-96, 499; Congress of 
Berlin, 496-97; Crimean War, 460- 
62, 489, 495; European Powers 
and, 461, 489, 494, 495, 496; 
Greece and, 424-27, 493-95; loss 
ofEgypt, 494-95, 499, 554-55; Rus- 
sia and, 426, 489-90, 493-99; 
liquidation of, 595-96 
Turks, 10, 28, 32, 78-79, 107, 114-15, 

292, 293,300-1, 425, 493-99 
Tuscany, 33, 417, 449, 45° 
Two Sicilies, 30, 417 
Tyrol, given Bavaria, 395; rises 
against French, 403 

Ulrica Eleanor, queen of Sweden, 298 



Ulster, 326 

Ultra-royalist, party in France, 429— 

3° 
United Netherlands, 169-70 
United Provinces; see Holland 
United States, 239, 339, 422-23, 518- 

19; in world war, 578-82 
Universities, mediaeval 17, 62 



Dutch Republic 

Valmy, battle of, 369 

Van Dyck, 177 

Vasa, Gustavus, 86 

Vassy, massacre of, 188-89 

Vatican, palace of, 467, 503 

Vauban, 285 

Venetia, 417, 450, 463, 466, 472; 

see Venice 
Venice, Austria and, 384, 415, 463; 

see Venetia; ceded to France, 395; 

insurrection (1848), 449-50; power 

and decay, 9-10, 31-32, 114; 

united to Italy, 466 
Velasquez, 118 
Vendee, La, insurrection in, 376— ^7, 

439 

Verdun, 83, 184, 224 

Verona, Congress of, 422 

Versailles, 277, 288; Peace of (1783), 
339; (1871), 477; banquet of, 358; 
mob invades, 358-59; States- 
General assemble at, 353; King 
William takes the title of emperor 
in, 478; peace of (1919), 589-92 

Vervins, Peace of, 197 

Victor Emmanuel II., 450, 452, 
462-67 

Victoria of England, 490 

Vienna, 206, 286; besieged by Turks, 
78; Congress of, ^40.7^ 4 14- iQiJUl 2, 
522, 524; Napoleon takes, 395; 
Peace of, 403; revolution (1848), 
445-46, 4S 2 -53 

Villele, ultra-royalist French minister, 
429-30 



Index 



663 



Vinci, Leonardo da, 18, 22 
Voltaire, 316, 351 

Voyages, Portuguese, 10-11; Spanish, 
11-13 

Wagram, battle of, 403 

Waldenses, 54; massacre of, 182 

Wallenstein, 213-21 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 331-33, 334 

Washington, George, 339 

Warsaw, duchy of, 398, 403, 416, 435; 
insurrection in, 436 

Wartburg, castle of, 71, 73 

Waterloo, battle of, 411 

Wellesley, Sir Arthur; see Wellington 

Wellington, duke of, 403, 409, 411, 
483 

Wentworth, Sir Thomas, 244, 245- 
46, 248 

Westphalia. Peace Qft.ijHj 201, 224- 
27, 276; kingdom of, 398, 403 

Whigs, 268-69, 271, 286, 329-32, 
483-84; see Liberal Party 

White Hill, battle of, 210 

Wilhelmina, queen of the Nether- 
lands, 525 

William I., king of the Netherlands, 

43 2 -33» 5 2 4 

William I. of Orange (the Silent), 
161, 163, 165-72 

William I. of Prussia and the Ger- 
man Empire, 468-69, 473, 475, 
476, 478 



William II., emperor of Germany, 

511-12, 552; deposed, 583 
William III. of England, 267, 270, 

271, 281, 283, 284, 323-27, 336; 

see William III. of Orange 
William III. of Orange, 267, 270, 

271, 281, 283; see William III. of 

England 
Windischgraetz, Austrian general, 

453 

Wittelsbach, House of, 322 

Wittenberg, 65, 68, 73 

Witt, John de, 280-81 

Wolsey, Cardinal, 124, 127; his dis- 
grace, 127 

Worms, Diet of, 70-72; Edict of, 72, 

77 
Wurtemberg, kingdom of, 395-96, 

417, 434 
Wyclif, John, 55, 60 

Yorktown, surrender of, 339 
Young, Arthur (English traveller), 
349-5° 

Zealand, 159, 168, 170, 172 

Zollverein, 434 

Zurich, Reformation in, 89 

Zwingli, Ulrich, 87-90; as humanist 
and democrat, 88; quarrel with 
Luther, 89; opposed by Forest 
cantons, 90 



LbFe'26 



